Conservative maintenance completed in September 2015 with funding from David & Ellen Rosand in honor of Melissa Conn, and an anonymous donor in honor of David Rosand.

Titian’s altarpiece that is now in the sacristy of the church of Santa Maria della Salute was originally painted for the church of Santo Spirito in Isola; it is thought to be Titian’s first independent commission, dated to approximately 1508–9.

At the center of the composition, Saint Mark sits enthroned upon a high pedestal; he holds his gospel in his right hand, leaning it upon his knee. He is framed by two pairs of standing male saints on the pavement below. On the left are Saints Cosmas and Damian, the patron saints of physicians, for they were doctors themselves; on the right appear Saints Roch and Sebastian, the two saints most frequently associated with the plague and particularly invoked in Venice during times of pestilence. The presence of these four figures suggests that the work may have been commissioned during the plague that ended in 1510. It is notable that Saint Mark’s face is dramatically obscured, as are his left arm and shoulder, by the shadow that is cast by the structure to the right; this may represent the plight of Venice during this time of crisis, as well as the city’s hope for salvation.

Together with several ceiling paintings also by Titian and a set of organ shutters by Giuseppe Porta Salviati, this altarpiece was transferred to the sacristy of Santa Maria della Salute following the suppression of the Augustinian Canons of Santo Spirito in Isola in 1656.

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

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (c. 1488/90–1576)
Saint Mark Enthroned with Saints Cosmas and Damian, Roch and Sebastian
c. 1508-09, oil on panel
230 x 149 cm

Rosand, David. Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

–––. Titian. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1978.

–––. Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto (1982), revised edition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Sherman, Allison. “Titian and Tintoretto in the Sacristy of Santa Maria della Salute: A Seicento Accademia for Displaced Treasures of the Venetian Cinquecento.” In The Enduring Legacy of Venetian Renaissance Art, edited by Andaleeb Badie Banta, 41-60. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.