Giorgio Vasari’s Allegory of Charity at the Gallerie dell’Accademia

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Donors

Restored in 2004 with funding from the Boston Chapter of Save Venice Inc.

History

During his sojourn in Venice, Giorgio Vasari was commissioned to paint a series of nine wooden panel paintings destined for the ceiling of a grand room in Palazzo Corner-Spinelli, located in a prominent position on the Grand Canal and designed by Mauro Codussi. This panel, which depicts an Allegory of Charity, was once the central compartment of the celebrated ceiling.

Surrounding the figure of Charity were four personifications of virtues: Faith, Hope, Justice, and Patience. Four smaller corner panels decorated with putti completed the composition. The Accademia purchased the Justice and Patience panels and three putti, while at the same time acquiring the Charity panel on long-term loan from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. More recently, in 2013 the Accademia succeeded in acquiring the panel of Faith. The representation of Hope remains in a private collection in England, and the fourth putto is lost.

Vasari’s Allegory of Charity, one of the three theological virtues (together with Faith and Hope), hovers in the heavens as she is silhouetted against a brilliant, halo-like light. She holds a basket in which a pelican feeds its young with its own blood: the pelican piercing its breast had long been a potent symbol of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and thereby also became an attribute of charity. The figure is more often identified by her maternal nursing of several infants. Here one of the children holds a vase of flames, another attribute of charity, alluding to the love of God as a light or a burning fire. Others play with laurel crowns, while others still float in the air as their draperies dance around them expressively.

Giorgio Vasari, Allegory of Charity, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia

Conservation

The painting was restored by Paola Borghese, and the wooden support by Roberto Saccumen, with the guidance of project director Giulio Manieri Elia of the Superintendency of Fine Arts of Venice.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.