Restored in 1989 with partial funding from World Monuments Fund and The J. Paul Getty Trust.

In 1492 the stonemason Sebastiano Mariani da Lugano was commissioned to build the frame for Cima da Conegliano’s Baptism of Christ, the high altarpiece of San Giovanni in Bragora. Inspired by the works of Tullio Lombardo and other Lombard sculptors active in Venice at the time, Mariani designed an innovative frame complete with richly decorated pilasters and columns of precious multicolored marble.

Just over a century later, in 1595, the renowned Venetian sculptor Alessandro Vittoria — a member of the parish of San Giovanni in Bragora — remodeled the presbytery of the church. Cima’s painting, which had originally been placed directly on the high altar, was raised about five feet on the rear wall so that it would not be partially obscured by a Sacred Sacrament tabernacle. Vittoria adapted the existing frame, adding a new marble pediment enclosed within an incomplete semicircle. A round window on the back wall had to be closed because of the new position of the painting, and Vittoria designed two new side windows for the presbytery at this time as well.

On the vaulted ceiling above the high altar, Ottaviano Ridolfi (1543–1603) added opulent decorations in gilded stucco that highlight the ribs of the cross vault and fill the sections between them with curling volutes, hanging garlands, and frames for fields that are now empty, although they would have originally contained other pictorial or sculptural elements. Ridolfi was a relative of Alessandro Vittoria, and his work often closely followed Vittoria’s style. He is also credited with a series of stucco decorations for Andrea Palladio’s most famous villa in the countryside outside of Vicenza, in the Veneto — the Villa Almerico Capra, known as the Villa Rotonda.

The stone elements were restored by conservators from the G.R.C. restoration firm, and the stuccoes by the Lithos restoration firm, with the guidance of project director Sandro Sponza 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.

Sebastiano Mariani da Lugano (active 1483–1518)
Frame for Cima da Conegliano’s Baptism of Christ
1494, marble

Alessandro Vittoria (1525–1608)
Frame Pediment
c. 1595, marble

Ottaviano Ridolfi (active 1567–1592) [attr.]
Presbytery Vault Stuccoes
c. 1590, stucco plaster and gold leaf

San Giovanni Battista in Bragora: Homepage (in Italian)

San Giovanni Battista in Bragora: The Presbytery (in Italian)

Humfrey, Peter. “Cima Da Conegliano, Sebastiano Mariani, and Alvise Vivarini at the East End of S. Giovanni in Bragora in Venice.” The Art Bulletin 62, no. 3 (1980): 350-63.