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

Saint Mark Healing the Cobbler Anianus (1478)

Artist: Pietro Lombardo (c.1435-1515)
Location: Scuola Calegheri, San Tomà
Media: Marble
Proposed treatment: Cleaning and restoration
Sponsored by: Beatrice and Randolph Guthrie and George and Betsy White and Gregory Nersesyan

The best-preserved Gothic scuola piccola in Venice is the Scuola dei Calegheri (The Guild of Shoemakers), founded in 1464 and facing and the parish church in Campo San Tomà. The most notable feature of the Scuola is its fine Gothic portal dated 1478, with a lunette relief depicting Saint Mark Healing the Cobbler Anianus. This early marble relief sculpted by Pietro Lombardo represents an episode in the life of the shoemakers' guild's patron saint. Saint Mark is shown healing the shoemaker who had injured his hand while making a pair of shoes. After Saint Mark healed him, the shoemaker converted to Christianity.

The relief is unusual within Renaissance sculpture because it is a low relief. This has led to some speculation as to who was responsible for its design. The artist Giovanni Bellini had a history of collaborating with the Lombardo family of sculptors, and some believe that Bellini designed the relief c. 1474, with Pietro Lombardo executing the design some four years later. The design has also been attributed to Antonio Rizzo, although it is more generally believed to have been an early work of Lombardo's.

Restoration procedures removed layers of dirt and grime from the relief to reveal decorative polychrome and gold leaf that give the sculpture an unusual pictorial quality.

Photo: Daniele Resini