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Antonio Contarini was elected patriarch of the Serenissima in 1508. While in charge, he ordered the rebuilding and enlargement of many religious structures. Among these was the Palazzo Patriarcale at San Pietro di Castello. Soon after a ten-year renovation of the patriarchal palace was completed in the early 1520s, Contarini commissioned an array of paintings from Vittore Carpaccio to decorate the newly rebuilt residence. Receiving payments totaling 317 ducats between October 1522 and November 1523, the artist would paint a number of paintings, including a cycle of portraits of the bishops and patriarchs of Venice. These two canvases are the only extant fragments from the series, which was dispersed in the 19th century.

Of the two fragments, only the canvas with the Portraits of the Bishops of Olivolo can be securely credited to Carpaccio and his collaborators. The other surviving canvas was produced by an artist whose style differs greatly from Carpaccio’s. Indeed, such a stylistic discrepancy supports the hypothesis that more than one workshop was involved, as assistants were required to adopt the style of their master.

This cycle reflects the longstanding tradition of ecclesiastical portrait galleries, which originated during the Middle Ages and enjoyed widespread popularity during the Renaissance. Among the many precedents, the most pertinent comparison is undoubtedly the series of one hundred bishops painted by Bartolomeo Montagna in 1506 for the Sala dei Vescovi in bishop Pietro Barozzi’s residence in Padua. Both cycles share an architectural loggia design that organizes paired portraits in visual dialogue, as well as the use of inscriptions detailing the name, nationality, date of appointment, and chronological sequence of the figures. Most significantly, both reflect the patron’s intent to use portraiture as a means of legitimizing their authority by underscoring its unbroken pastoral continuity.

In shaping the pictorial cycle, Contarini enlisted Angelo Maria degli Archi, a regular canon of the Venetian church of San Salvador, to compile information on all his episcopal predecessors. Preserved in a manuscript now housed at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, degli Archi’s Elenchus episcoporum civitatis Venetiarum contains biographical profiles accompanied by pen-and-watercolor portraits. These portraits exhibit a pronounced anecdotal sensitivity, occasionally transcending the formal conventions of official representation to embrace vivid narrative details. A striking example is the portrayal of Bishop Cristoforo Tancredi, shown being attacked by a demon while celebrating Mass in the church of San Teodoro. Tancredi, notorious for having usurped the episcopal seat, was said to have incurred divine justice in the form of an apoplectic stroke—an event misinterpreted by the faithful as demonic possession. This dramatic incident inspired degli Archi’s depiction: Tancredi is illustrated at the altar, mid-Eucharistic celebration, his hands raised in a gesture caught between prayer and alarm, while a devil with fiery breath lunges at his face.

Carpaccio’s reinterpretation takes an entirely different approach. In his rendition, Tancredi is identifiable solely by his dalmatic vestment, bald head, and the inscriptions on the balustrade. Notably, Carpaccio emphasizes the bishop’s hands. The left hand hovers mid-air, palm open and facing upward, as if grasping at an unseen presence, while the right hand is pressed to his chest in a gesture of contrition. Given Tancredi’s historical association with demonic possession, it is plausible to speculate that the open hand might originally have held a devil figure—transformed by Carpaccio into a subtler attribute of the bishop. What is certain is that Carpaccio was tasked with crafting a sanitized public image of Tancredi—one that would comfortably and without controversy incorporate him among Contarini’s spiritual predecessors.

Based on the chronology of the Venetian bishops, we may hypothesize that Carpaccio’s canvas was the first in the cycle, as the figure portrayed on the far left, although largely erased, can be identified as Cristoforo Damiata, the second bishop of Olivolo, who succeeded Obelerico in 797. The second fragment most certainly appeared at the end of the cycle of paintings, as it concluded with the portrait of the ninth patriarch of Venice, Alvise Contarini, who was succeeded by Antonio Contarini, the patron of the cycle and the patriarch at the time of its completion.

Conservation treatment of both paintings will address condition problems including lifting and flaking paint, tension issues with the stretchers, and the removal of disfiguring non-original surface residues including oxidized varnishes, grime, and unsightly retouching from previous interventions. Treatment will not only greatly improve the legibility of the paintings, but it will also likely provide more insight about the works that are the only surviving testament of a pictorial cycle that has since been lost.

Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465 – c. 1526) and workshop
Portraits of the Bishops of Olivolo
1518-1523, oil on canvas
176 x 337,6 cm

Unidentified Artist
Portraits of the Patriarchs of Venice
1518-1523, oil on canvas
205 x 253,5 cm

Pinacoteca Manfrediniana: Homepage

Gentili, Augusto. Le storie di Carpaccio: Venezia, i Turchi, gli Ebrei. Venice: Marsilio, 1996

Guidarelli, Gianmario. I patriarchi di Venezia e l’architettura: la cattedrale di san Pietro di Castello nel Rinascimento. Padua: Il poligrafo; Venice: IUAV, 2015

Guidarelli, Gianmario and Gabriele Matino. L’ultimo Carpaccio. Pittura e architettura nella “sala grande” del Palazzo Patriarcale di Venezia (1518-1523). In Peter Humfrey and Gabriele Matino (eds.). Vittore Carpaccio. Contesto, iconografia, fortuna. Venice: Lineadacqua, 2024, pp. 75-87

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Matino, Gabriele and Patricia Fortini Brown, eds. Carpaccio in Venice: A Guide. Venice: Marsilio, 2020