Restored in 2003 with funding from the Fannie Trost Family Fund and Dr. Joseph Alexander Precker in memory of Fannie Trost.

Jacopo Palma il Giovane, a follower of Titian and Tintoretto and one of the last protagonists of the Venetian Renaissance tradition, created these monumental and imposing paintings in 1595 to serve as shutters for the organ in the church of San Zaccaria. Organ shutters generally consist of two canvas paintings mounted back to back to form doors. When opened, the interior side of the shutters was revealed, framing the pipes of the instrument; when closed, they protected the pipes from dust and their exterior decorations were visible.

Palma’s Triumph of David originally graced the exterior side of the organ doors. The vigorous and muscular figures, simple color scheme, chiaroscuro, and confident broad brushwork all demonstrate Palma’s skill and maturity as an artist. On the left, a young triumphant David, returning from battle, proudly displays the enormous bearded head of the slain Goliath. On the right, elegantly dressed Israelite women sing and play instruments to celebrate David’s victory, an appropriate musical subject for the painting’s function.

Although the canvases were removed from the organ when it was replaced toward the end of the eighteenth century, they are displayed united, as if closed, and occupy a prominent position in the Chapel of Sant’Atanasio, the former nuns’ choir. At more than eighteen feet in height, these are the tallest surviving organ shutters produced in Venice.

The interior shutters, now unfortunately lost, depicted Zacharias, the saint to whom the church was dedicated, and Saint Ligerius, a lesser-known saint whose relics were preserved in San Zaccaria.

The work was restored by conservators Serafino and Marco Volpin, with the guidance of project directors Emanuela Zucchetta of the Superintendency of Monuments of Venice and 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.

Jacopo Palma il Giovane (1548/50–1628)
Triumph of David
1595, oil on canvas
625 x 195 cm each

Bisson, Massimo. Meravigliose macchine di giubilo. L’architettura e l’arte degli organi a Venezia nel Rinascimento. Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 2012.

Mason Rinaldi, Stefania. Palma il Giovane: l’opera completa. Milan: Alfieri, 1984.