Other Restorations
Church of San Samuele | Church of San Lio | Monumental Arch | Cornaro Chapel | Saint Mark Healing the Cobbler Anianus | Four Wooden Poles | Façade of Scuola Dalmata | Sarcophagus of Giovanni Priuli | Marco Polo Arch | Tombstones, New Jewish Cemetery, Lido |   Bernabò Chapel and Relief of the Coronation of the Virgin | Photographs of Venetian Architecture and Sculpture  |  19th-Century Glass-Plate Negatives of Venice from the Ferdinando Ongania Collection  |  St. Martin and the Beggar  | Madonna with Child and St. Peter |  Crucifix

  

Church of San Lio Gussoni Chapel

Commissioned by Senator Jacopo Gussoni as a private family chapel in the last decades of the 15th century, and attributed to Pietro Lombardo, the Gussoni Chapel is a superb example of Early Renaissance architecture and sculptural ornamentation.

The squared Chapel contains an abundance of Lombardo decoration over most of its surface. Four dominant pilasters set well out from the walls lead to arches framing pendentives of half-length reliefs of the four Evangelists. The pilasters also support a ribbed dome, in the manner of a medieval baldacchino. A relief of the Pietà by Tullio Lombardo, restored by Save Venice in 1986, is situated above the altar.

Restoration of the chapel, under the direction of Annalisa Bristot of the Superintendency of Environmental and Architectural Heritage of Venice, has involved many of the techniques and procedures developed during Save Venice's work on the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, restored from 1987-1997. These include desalinization and cleaning of the marble sheeting, and cleaning and consolidation of the Istrian stone decorative elements. Repairs were also made to the terracotta and marble pavement, the roof and drain spouts, window frames and wooden benches. Finally, a new electrical system was installed, and the external walls were replastered.

A cross-sectional analysis of the fields between the cupola ribs has recently revealed the presence of original fresco decorations long obscured by a layer of tempera-painted plaster. This extraordinary discovery may well be the only example of pictorial decoration contemporary to Lombardo-style architecture in the entire city. The fresco fragments reveal half-length figures, including that of King David, and geometric designs. Numerous layers of plaster added through the centuries had covered the rib sections and distorted the true proportions of the vault; their removal and the fresco discovery now return to light the true decorative and architectonic form created for Senator Gussoni.