Lead support for the conservation treatment of the Lando Chapel generously provided by an Anonymous Donor in thanks to San Sebastiano.

The Chapel of the Virgin Annunciate, also known as the Lando Chapel, is located in the church of San Sebastiano, to the left of the presbytery and just a few feet away from Paolo Veronese’s tomb. Marco Lando, the grandson of Girolamo Lando, the Patriarch of Constantinople, acquired the chapel on March 1st, 1531. The chapel was transferred as a dowry to Marco’s daughter, Bianca, when she married Daniele Vitturi in 1542 and remained on the property of the Vitturi family until the relatives of doge Carlo Ruzzini took it over. The chapel was once known for its colorful majolica tile floor dating to 1510 and installed on the chapel floor by the Lando family between 1531 and 1542.

Learn More about the Majolica floor of the Lando Chapel

In the 1610s, the painted decoration of the chapel’s side walls was entrusted to Matteo Ingoli, a painter from Ravenna who had moved to Venice at the beginning of the century. After a short apprenticeship with Alvise Benfatto, Ingoli completed his artistic training under Gabriele Caliari, son of Paolo Veronese, and entered the Venetian painters’ guild in 1612. Ingoli soon became the protégé of Gabriele, who introduced him to his circle of friends and patrons. It was Gabriele, for instance, who negotiated Ingoli’s wages for the restoration of Paolo Veronese’s ceiling paintings in the church of San Giacomo dall’Orio (1620). Indeed, it is highly probable that Gabriele’s influence and connections at the church of San Sebastiano also helped Ingoli win the painted decoration of the Lando Chapel.

The chapel’s altarpiece represents the Annunciation of the Virgin. Traditionally, the painting was attributed to Matteo Ingoli, but the current conservation treatment tends not to support that hypothesis. Mary is shown in her temple-like bedroom as she kneels at her prie-dieu and receives the visit of the Angel Gabriel and the Holy Spirit in the form of a white dove. Here the artist depicts the very moment of the Incarnation when Mary “was found with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Two gold-plated angels holding palms are carved in the spandrels that flank the arch of the altar frame, whereas the altar front shows a beautiful bas-relief of the Annunciation in colored marbles attributed to Father Vittorio Bosello.

Originally, the chapel’s side walls were decorated with six scenes from the Life of the Virgin Mary. On the right wall used to hang a large canvas depicting the Birth of the Virgin and two small paintings of the Presentation of Mary and the Marriage of the Virgin. The same arrangement was repeated on the opposite wall, where the large Flight into Egypt was joined by the Visitation and the Nativity of Jesus. Presently, only the Birth of the Virgin and the Flight into Egypt are still on site. The former features quite a traditional iconography, with Saint Anne in the background at the left recuperating in bed, and in the foreground, the infant Mary being bathed next to Saint Joachim. The Saint is by far the best part of the painting: seated at the table, he stares directly through the canvas at the viewer as he pauses in his reading. In the Flight into Egypt, St Joseph leads the Virgin and Child on a donkey through a hilly landscape as the Angel of God gracefully shows them the way. Joseph casts a sad, contemplative look outside the painting, but unlike Joachim, he actively ignores the viewer. They both seem to be portraits, perhaps of the patrons of the painted cycle.

Ingoli’s cycle for the Lando Chapel was one of his earliest commissions. Throughout his career, he made a specialty of painting scenes from the Life of the Virgin, which he produced profusely. Indeed, even Gabriele Caliari commissioned from him a series of small paintings on the very same subject. The canvases were probably kept in the Veronese workshop as patterns (ricordi) for the assistants or as models for potential donors. Two of them, incorrectly attributed to Andrea Vicentino, are currently housed at the Gallerie degli Uffizi and may recall Ingoli’s lost works in San Sebastiano. They represent the Visitation and the Presentation of the Virgin, and show a young Ingoli emulating Veronese’s works. Likely, it was Iongoli’s ability to replicate Veronese house style that secured him the decoration of an entire chapel in the church of San Sebastiano.

Each painting in the Virgin Annunciate (Lando) Chapel was covered with a thick layer of surface dirt and grime, as well as oxidized varnish, obstructing the original details and colors. During conservation treatment, these non-original layers were carefully thinned and removed, together with any heavy overpainting from previous restoration attempts. Any losses to the pictorial surface was filled using removable conservation paints before a final layer of protective varnish was applied. The cleaning process showed that the painting was not made by Matteo Ingoli, as previously believed.

Anonymous
Annunciation
late 16th century (?), oil on canvas
250 x 120 cm

Matteo Ingoli (1587–1631) [Attr.]
Birth of the Virgin
c. 1610s, oil on canvas
115 x 280 cm

Matteo Ingoli (1587–1631) [Attr.]
Flight into Egypt
c. 1610s, oil on canvas
115 x 280 cm

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Salomon, Xavier, Davide Gasparotto, Gabriele Matino, and Melissa Conn. The Church of San Sebastiano in Venice: A Guide, Venice: Marsilio, 2024

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