Guercino’s Saint Helen Adoring the Cross at San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti

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Donors

Testing and maintenance funded in 1999 by Save Venice.

History

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino, was born in 1591 in the Emilia region of central Italy, and worked in Bologna and Rome. This painting, the only known work by Guercino in Venice, was commissioned by the Tasca family in 1644 for the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti. The painting depicts Saint Helen Adoring the Cross as she kneels before it with her hands clasped in prayer. Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine I, was credited with the discovery of the True Cross during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 324. In Guercino’s painting, among the figures that accompany Helen is Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers, to whom the church was dedicated; he embraces the cross and glances upward in adoration as well.

The church of San Lazzaro was originally part of the Ospizio di San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, one of the four major hospital complexes in Venice. Founded in 1224 in Dorsoduro, this Ospizio, dedicated to those inflicted with leprosy and infectious diseases, moved to a larger site behind the Scuola Grande di San Marco in 1595. The Ospizio di San Lazzaro was closed due to Napoleonic suppression, and in 1808 the Ospizio complex and parts of the adjacent convent of Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the premises of the Scuola Grande di San Marco were transformed into a military hospital. Today they form the main hospital of the city of Venice.

Guercino, Saint Helen Adoring the Cross, San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti

Conservation

The work was restored by conservator Valentina Piovan, with the guidance of project director Sandro Sponza 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.