Restored in 2001 with funding from the Mont Blanc Boutique, Venice.

Jacopo Pesaro, immortalized in Titian’s Madonna of Ca’ Pesaro, commissioned his own funerary monument in 1524, twenty-three years before his death in 1547. The tomb is installed in the wall just to the left of the family altar decorated with Titian’s altarpiece. The architectural details of the monument are richly decorated with gilding and inlays of red porphyry and verde antico marble, matching the monumental frame of the adjacent altarpiece itself.

Jacopo’s effigy, dressed in his bishop’s garb, reclines upon a sarcophagus; he props himself up on his elbow, as if resting rather than in eternal repose. At the foot of the sarcophagus, two angels hold his mitre and the Pesaro family crest. The commemorative stone plaque beneath the monument cites his position as Bishop of Paphos and his victory against the Turks in 1502 — a great point of pride for both his family and his native city.

The work was restored by conservator Anna Keller, with the guidance of project director Adriana Augusti 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.

Unidentified sculptor
Funerary Monument of Jacopo Pesaro
1524, Istrian stone and marble
400 x 300 cm (approx.)

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