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Save Venice’s next endeavor in the Accademia will be the conservation of Vittore Carpaccio’s iconic painting of the Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge, thanks to a generous gift from Jon and Barbara Landau with support from Randa and K.C. Weiner.

This painting is one of eight canvases from the True Cross Cycle that originally decorated the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista depicting miracles of their revered relic of the True Cross, given to the confraternity in 1396. The cycle also includes famed works by Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani, and Benedetto Diana. The scuola still possesses the relic today, but the paintings were given to the Accademia in 1820 in the aftermath of the fall of the Venetian Republic and the Napoleonic suppressions.

Carpaccio’s painting, with its view of the Grand Canal and Rialto bridge in the 1490s, depicts the healing of a madman in the presence of the True Cross relic. The wooden Rialto bridge seen in the painting collapsed in 1524 and was replaced in 1591 with the stone structure we are familiar with today.

The canvas will be taken to the Misericordia conservation lab in Venice where treatment will focus on removing non-original surface residues including thick layers of dirt and grime, discolored varnishes, and heavy overpainting from previous conservation treatments, which are distorting the chromatic brilliance of Carpaccio’s color palette.