Restored in 1995 with funding from Toto Bergamo.

Giovanni Maria Mosca strove to imbue his statues with heightened emotion, and a sense of underlying agitation pervades this figure. The intensity of feeling is registered in a somewhat rhetorical vein, underlined by the Baptist’s parted lips and tilted head — features probably inspired by similar works of Tullio Lombardo.

Mosca was trained in Padua as a sculptor and medallist, and his style is representative of the style of sixteenth-century sculpture in the Veneto before the arrival in Venice of Jacopo Sansovino in 1527. Two years later, in 1529, Mosca would depart for the court of King Sigismond I of Poland, where he spent the remainder of his career.

The work was restored by conservator Toto Bergamo and the Sansovino restoration firm, with the guidance of project director Ettore Merkel 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.

Giovanni Maria Mosca (c. 1495–c. 1574)
Saint John the Baptist
1524-1526, marble
75 cm tall

Chorus Association: Church of Santo Stefano