Pre-restoration analysis completed in 2006 with Save Venice general funds; restoration completed with funding from the Italian State.

Andrea Mantegna’s panel depicting Saint Sebastian, now in the Galleria Franchetti at the Ca’ d’Oro, is the latest of three paintings of the subject that the artist produced. Born around 1431 near the city of Padua, Mantegna was the brother-in-law of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. He primarily worked outside of Venice, especially in the town of Mantua, where for many years he was the official court painter for the Gonzaga family; the Saint Sebastian may in fact have been commissioned by Bishop Ludovico Gonzaga. Known for the dramatic use of perspective and illusionism in his paintings, Mantegna was a also dedicated student of ancient Roman architecture and sculpture, as is clearly reflected in the figures and archaeological details of his works.

The painting represents Saint Sebastian’s first martyrdom, in which he is executed to death by a firing squad of archers and shot through with arrows; he miraculously survives due to the strength of his faith. Given that these arrows inflicted numerous wounds all over his body, Sebastian came to be invoked during times of the plague, due to the sores that it provoked.

The first two of Mantegna’s depictions of Saint Sebastian, now located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Louvre in Paris, resemble each other in style and represent the saint among classical architectural ruins, with lush landscapes and blue sky filling the background. This Saint Sebastian, the latest of the three, is more solemn in character and starkly contrasts with the artist’s earlier depictions of the saint. Here he is silhouetted against a dark background, and there is a greater emphasis on his expression of agony and his twisting pose. In the lower right corner, an inscription spiraling around a just-extinguished candle reads “NIHIL NISI DIVINUM STABILE EST. CAETERA FUMUS” — “Nothing is stable if not divine. The rest is smoke.”

Baron Giorgio Franchetti purchased the Ca’ d’Oro, one of the most ornate and recognizable Venetian gothic palaces on the Grand Canal, in 1894; he lovingly restored the palazzo, even going so far as to seek out elements of the original construction that had since been removed, such as Bartolomeo Bon’s wellhead in red Verona marble, which Save Venice is currently restoring after the drastic flooding of November 2019. Franchetti lived in the Ca’ d’Oro until his death in 1922, and he bequeathed the palace to the Italian State with the intention that it would become a museum. His art collection, focused on Italian and Flemish works produced during the Renaissance, was opened to the public in 1927. Mantegna’s Saint Sebastian remains one of the most important paintings in the gallery. It is on view within a marble-clad chapel designed by Franchetti himself to display the work.

The technical analysis of the work was performed by Diagnostica per l’Arte Fabbrie, with the guidance of project director Adriana Augusti 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.

Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506)
Saint Sebastian
1490s, egg tempera on wood
213 x 95 cm

Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro: Homepage

Campbell, Stephen J. and Jérémie Koering, eds. Andrea Mantegna: Making Art (History). Chichester, West Sussex, UK and Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2015.