Restored in 2006 with funding from the Boston Chapter of Save Venice Inc.

Venice is rich in artistic treasures, yet many of the city’s monuments and works of art have been destroyed or dispersed through the years. Such was the fate of the church and convent of Santa Maria delle Vergini, founded in the thirteenth century. Once located in Castello near the church of San Pietro and the Arsenale shipyards, Santa Maria delle Vergini had a prosperous convent whose nuns were of the Venetian noble class. This illustrious religious complex was torn down during the Austrian occupation of Venice in the first half of the nineteenth century, and its artworks were scattered.

One of the few remnants of the church is this fifteenth-century lunette, which once graced a portal in the convent’s cloister. It is now located on an external wall of the Arsenale above the Rio delle Vergini, a canal that has retained the name of the demolished church. The decorative arch is embellished with foliage and flanked by Gothic turrets. A fifteenth-century bust of God the Father crowns the arch, and below are three sculptures: a Madonna and Child, attributed to Bartolomeo Bon, and figures of Saint Mark and Saint Augustine. The latter two are both thought to date to 1557, the year inscribed on the plaque below which states, “hope and love keep us in this pleasant prison” — a reference to the cloistered life of the nuns.

The lunette was restored by conservators from the Ducale Restauro Firm, with the guidance of project director Emanuela Zucchetta of the Superintendency of Monuments 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.

Bartolomeo Bon (c. 1400–1464/67) [attr.] and unidentified sculptors
Lunette with Madonna and Child, God the Father
c. 1420, Istrian stone and marble

Unidentified sculptor
Saint Mark; Saint Augustine
c. 1557, marble

Markham Schulz, Anne. The Sculpture of Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon and their Workshop. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1978.