Reliefs restored in 1991 and altars restored in 1999 with funding from Fratelli Rossetti.

Antonio Rizzo was born in Verona and worked in Venice until 1499 as both a distinguished architect and highly acclaimed sculptor. He was named protomaestro of the Doge’s Palace in 1483 and was responsible for the rebuilding of its east wing, one of the most important architectural works of the Venetian Renaissance. One of his first known works in Venice, completed in 1465, is a set of altars dedicated to Saint James and Saint Paul inside the Basilica commissioned by Doge Cristoforo Moro (reigned 1462–1471). Each of Rizzo’s altars is surmounted by a statue of the corresponding saint with his most recognizable attribute: Saint Paul with a sword, Saint James with a pilgrim’s staff.

A low-relief marble panel with Renaissance-style clusters of fruit and foliage that hang from elegantly curling ribbons decorates the front of the Saint James Altar. The Saint Paul Altar in turn features a low-relief marble frontal that depicts the Conversion of Paul, the dramatic moment during Paul’s journey from Jerusalem to Damascus when the apostle experienced a vision of Christ and converted to Christianity. This marble relief dedicated to Saint Paul is one of the first examples of pictorial sculptural relief in Renaissance Venice, a technique that had been revolutionized by Donatello in Florence earlier in the fifteenth century.

The reliefs were restored in 1991 by conservator Maria Teresa Marchetto, and the altars by conservator Martina Serafin in 1999; both stages of the restoration were overseen by project director Ettore Merkel 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.

Antonio Rizzo (1430–1499)
Altars of Saint James and Saint Paul
1465, Carrara and verde antico marble

Basilica di San Marco: Homepage

Anne Markham Schulz, Antonio Rizzo: Sculptor and Architect. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.