Restored in 2001 by Venice International Foundation with additional funding from the Boston Chapter of Save Venice Inc., Dr. and Mrs. Randolph H. Guthrie, and Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò.

Giandomenico Tiepolo painted these frescoes for his family’s villa in Zianigo on the Venetian mainland. The subjects range from lofty literary and religious depictions to simple genre scenes. Many episodes feature Punchinello, the stock figure from the Commedia dell’Arte that served as an “everyman” offering droll commentary on human nature. The frescoes show the development of Giandomenico’s art over a period of four decades, from his early work that was still heavily influenced by his famous father Giambattista to the more personal style of his later years.

The last of the painters in the great Venetian tradition, Giandomenico manifests a poignant awareness of the way in which the world was changing toward the end of the eighteenth century. With a reverie for the past, he looks with a certain wonder towards the new world — particularly in the fresco known as the “mondo nuovo,” as magic lanterns were called, for they allowed viewers to experience faraway, exotic lands through their projected images.

The frescoes were detached from the walls of the villa and installed in six rooms on the second floor of Ca’ Rezzonico in 1936.

The frescoes were restored by conservator Ottorino Nonfarmale, with the guidance of project director Filippo Pedrocco.

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.

Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727–1804)
Frescoes from the Tiepolo Villa at Zianigo
1759–1797, Detached fresco

Ca’ Rezzonico Museum: Homepage

Ca’ Rezzonico Museum: Link to the Works

Mariuz, Adriano . “Giandomenico Tiepolo’s Frescoes at the Villa Zianigo.” Save Venice Journal (2001): 38-43. Link to the article

Mariuz, Adriano. Giandomenico Tiepolo. Venice: Alfieri, 1971.

Mariuz, Adriano and Filippo Pedrocco. Giandomenico Tiepolo. The Zianigo Frescoes at Ca’ Rezzonico. Venice: Marsilio, 2004.