Restored in 2002-04 with funding from Young Friends of Save Venice, Boston Chapter.

Gaspare Diziani was born in Belluno in the northern Veneto, where he began his artistic training under the tutelage of Antonio Lazzarini. At the age of twenty he moved to Venice, where he apprenticed with Gregorio Lazzarini and with fellow Bellunese artist Sebastiano Ricci. He was primarily active in Venice and in his native Belluno, but also worked in Munich, Dresden, and Rome.

Many of his site-specific works in Venice survive; these include the cycle of paintings that he produced for the Scuola del Vin, the wine merchants’ confraternity, in 1757. Destined for the ceiling of the scuola’s chapter hall on the upper floor of their meeting house, Diziani’s three canvases depict scenes from the life of Saint Helen. The mother of Roman emperor Constantine, Helen was credited with the miraculous discovery of the True Cross in Jerusalem following her son’s prompting to undertake this quest.

Diziani’s first scene in this series, the Dream of Saint Helen, shows Helen before her voyage. While asleep in a towering and ornate canopy bed that Diziani has curiously placed at an oblique angle, Helen is visited by an angel, who brings her the news that she will find the True Cross. Diziani’s rich palette and striking illumination achieve an unusually theatrical representation of this normally tranquil episode, recalling his previous activity in the production of stage scenery.

At the opposite end of the chapter hall ceiling is Diziani’s painting of Saint Helen Questioning Judas. Upon arriving in Jerusalem, Helen gathered all of the rabbis and sages in an attempt to locate the True Cross. These men brought forth an elder named Judas who knew its whereabouts. Yet Judas denied any knowledge of the Cross, and so Helen had him imprisoned for several days until he finally revealed the location. Diziani placed Helen in an elevated position, vilifying the figure of Judas. Intense illumination from the painting’s upper left corner highlights the gestures and expressions of both of the central figures of the work.

The final episode in the narrative cycle is Saint Helen Adoring the True Cross. This climactic scene fills the oval canvas in the center of the ceiling, highlighting its importance. After Judas led Helen to the location of the Cross, three crosses were extracted from the ground. To determine which was the True Cross, Helen brought all three to people with incurable diseases as well as to those who had recently died. After touching the third and final cross, the sick were miraculously cured and the deceased restored to life, indicating that this one was in fact the True Cross. In this scene, Helen adores the True Cross, which is carried by angels. Judas, a darkened figure behind Helen, stands in a penitent pose as if to suggest he has been converted to belief in the True Cross.

The paintings were restored by conservator Sandra Pesso, with the guidance of project director Roberta Battaglia 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.

Gaspare Diziani (1689–1767)
Dream of Saint Helen; Saint Helen Questioning Judas in Her Search for the Cross; Saint Helen Adoring the Cross
1757, oil on canvas
247 x 247 cm; 247 x 247 cm; 385 x 247 cm