The 2023–2026 conservation of the ceiling, portals, and stone window frames of the Room of the Four Doors was made possible with generous support from:

GRAND BENEFACTOR
Manitou Fund through Nora McNeely Hurley

LEAD CORPORATE SUPPORTER
The Gritti Palace, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Venice (Door to the Senate)

LEAD FUNDERS
GUCCI (Door to the Anticollegio)
Karin McKinnell Leidel and Peter Leidel (Door to the Council of Ten)

BENEFACTORS
Patricia Nagy Olsen
The Young Friends of Save Venice, with support from the Camalotte Foundation
In Memory of Carlton & Andree Vail by Meredith Brown Trustee of the Vail Memorial Trust
James R. Dougherty, Jr. Foundation, Inc.
In Honor of Ruth & Hutton Wilkinson
In Honor of The David S. Winter Family

DONORS:
In Honor of Manda Kalimian

With additional support from Karen Cahill, Jay Marciano, Juan Prieto, and Michael Root

In collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Save Venice funded the 2023-2026 conservation of one of the most impressive reception halls in the Venetian Republic’s seat of the government. Designed by Palladio with chief architect of the Republic Antonio da Ponte overseeing the project, this room was rebuilt and decorated following the fire that destroyed some of the second-floor rooms of the Palazzo Ducale on May 11, 1574. The room still features its original stucco work by il Bombarda (1575-1576), frescoes by Jacopo Tintoretto (1577), paintings by Titian (1556-1593), and sculptures by Alessandro Vittoria (1525 – 1608).

The Sala delle Quattro Porte is one of the most remarkable public spaces of the Palazzo Ducale, in fact, one whose design and decoration involved some of the major artists in Venice, including Palladio, Tintoretto, Titian, Tiepolo, and Vittoria. A large rectangular hall, the Sala delle Quattro Porte stands as a passageway into the rooms where Venice’s most powerful political bodies used to meet: the halls of the Senate, Collegio, and Council of Ten.

In the time of the Serenissima, influential patricians, foreign diplomats, and royal visitors walked through the Sala delle Quattro Porte to access their offices and meet with government officials. Today over a million tourists pass through these halls each year.

Following a devastating fire that destroyed the Sala delle Quattro Porte on May 11, 1574, a campaign to rebuild and redecorate it was immediately launched with the chief architect of the Republic (proto) Antonio da Ponte overseeing the works.

Between 1575 and 1576, Giovanni Battista Cambio, called “il Bombarda,” carved the ceiling’s stucco mouldings and mythological sculptures. Almost a year later, a certain “master Baldissera” enriched the vault with his elaborate grotesque decorations.

From 1576–1577, Jacopo Tintoretto frescoed the ceiling with eleven allegorical scenes and two lunettes. The iconographic program of the frescoes was devised by humanist Francesco Sansovino to glorify Venice’s mythical birth, independence, power, and virtues. Some of the most notable frescoes by Tintoretto depict Jupiter crowning Venice queen of the sea, Venice as the defender of liberty, and Juno presenting Venice with the insignia of power.

By the mid-1600s, the vault suffered water damage, and two of Tintoretto’s ovals, portraying allegorical figures of Altino and Vicenza, were restored by painter Francesco Ruschi. Less than a century later, a major restoration campaign was launched in 1713. Francesco Grandi regilded the vault’s moldings and repainted the ruined grotesque, and Nicolò Bambini was entrusted with the restoration (and some extensive repainting) of Tintoretto’s frescoes.

Twenty years later more work was done: Bombarda’s sculptures were restored and substantial structural works to the vault were carried out. Tintoretto’s Jupiter Makes Venice Queen of the Seas was once again restored, first by Pietro Cardinali in 1740 and then by Giacomo Guarana in 1777. Their heavy retouching altered Tintoretto’s composition, whose original design is preserved in a drawing probably made before Bambini’s 1713 restoration. Tintoretto’s fresco of Venice’s Marriage with Neptune was replaced between 1756–1758 by Giambattista Tiepolo’s famous Neptune Offering Gifts to Venice.

The four monumental doors from which this room takes its name were created by some of the best sculptors of late 16th and early 17th-century Venice–Alessandro Vittoria, Giulio del Moro, Francesco Castelli, and Girolamo Campagna.

The iconographic program was devised by a committee of three advisers: Girolamo Bardi, a Florentine Camaldolese monk, and two Venetian noblemen, Jacopo Contarini and Jacopo Marcello. They devised the plan in 1578 to design the doors to embody the virtues associated with the halls into which each door would lead.

Accordingly, Giulio del Moro’s sculptures above the door to the Atrio Quadrato represent Secretiveness, Diligence, and Loyalty; those by Alessandro Vittoria on top of the door to the Anticollegio symbolize Eloquence, Vigilance, and the Facility of Audience; the statues decorating the door to the Senate, carved by Girolamo Campagna, depict Peace, Goddess Pallas, and War; and, finally, Francesco Castelli’s sculptures for the door to the Council of Ten portray Supreme Authority, Religion, and Justice.

Behind the sculptures atop each doorway is also a monochrome canvas painting depicting an episode from the history of Rome. Although their attribution remains uncertain, scholars have suggested that they may have been painted by the Heirs of Paolo Veronese or their workshop as they are very similar to their works on the ceiling of the Anticollegio.

An extensive diagnostic campaign in 2022 determined that the many decorative elements of the complex ceiling of the Sala delle Quattro Porte and the four monumental four doors were in urgent need of conservation treatment.

Specifically, the intervention involved the large Roman-style vaulted ceiling, both in its hidden structural components and in its rich decorative apparatus of mural paintings and stuccoes, as well as the stone portals and sculptural groups, the stone-framed windows, and the monochrome painted canvases.

The study of the ceiling paintings led to one of the most significant technical discoveries of the project: the works were not executed as frescoes, but with oil paints applied over a ground of gypsum and glue, using a technique akin to canvas painting. This method of execution, compounded by subsequent, not always documented interventions, has over time made the conservation of the surfaces and their legibility more complex.

The work included a detailed mapping of the state of conservation, visual and tactile inspections, and an analytical campaign that made it possible to identify layers added to the original paint layer. The cleaning phase involved the removal of a twentieth-century varnish and several repaintings dating to restorations carried out in the last century, with analytical checks conducted before and after the intervention. Degraded old fillings were also removed, the paint layer consolidated, and the numerous cracks and losses treated. Finally, following extensive iconographic and stylistic comparison with scholars and art history experts, the missing areas and abrasions were reintegrated using watercolors and glazes, to restore a unified and balanced reading of the decorated surfaces.

Equally remarkable was the effort made over the two years of work to continue to guarantee access to the room and visibility of its decorations during the intervention. This was achieved through the installation of a visible restoration laboratory, an “open worksite” on the first floor “Liagò” room along the museum itinerary, which allowed visitors to observe restorers at work on the canvas paintings that decorate the walls above the room’s four portals.

Antonio da Ponte (1512 – 1597)
Sala delle Quattro Porte
c. 1574

Giovanni Battista Cambio called il Bombarda (active c. 1540 – 1577)
Stucco Moldings; Mythological Sculptures; Philosophers; Angels
1575 – 1576, plaster stucco

Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518/19–1594)
Jupiter Makes Venetia Queen of the Seas
c. 1576 – 1577, fresco
300 x 510 cm

Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518/19–1594)
Venetia as Defender of Liberty
c. 1576 – 1577, fresco
diameter 290 cm

Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518/19–1594)
Juno Presenting to Venice the Insignia of Power
c. 1576 – 1577, fresco
diameter 290 cm

Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518/19–1594)
The City of Treviso
c. 1576 – 1577, fresco
115 x 160 cm

Nicolò Bambini (1652 – 1736)
The City of Altino; The City of Vicenza; Friuli; The City of Brescia; The City of Padua; Istria
1713 – 1714, fresco
115 x 160

Nicolò Bambini (1652 – 1736)
Venetia Resting on a Globe
1713 – 1714, fresco
115 x 265

Ermolao Paoletti (1834 – 1912)
The city of Verona
1864, fresco
115 x 160 cm

Alessandro Vittoria
Sculptures: Eloquence, Vigilance, and the Facility of Audience
c.1589, marble

Girolamo Campagna
Sculptures: Peace, Goddess Pallas, and War
c.1589, marble

Francesco Castelli
Sculptures: Supreme Authority, Religion, and Justice
c.1589, marble

Giulio del Moro
Sculptures: Secretiveness, Diligence, and Loyalty
c.1589, marble

Unidentified Artists
Four Episodes from the History of Rome
c. 1589, oil on canvas

Franzoi, Umberto, Terisio Pignatti and Wolfgang Wolters. Il Palazzo Ducale di Venezia. Treviso: Canova, 1990

Quaderni della Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Venezia, 8 (1979)

Radassao, Roberto. “Nicolò Bambini ‘pittore pronto spedito ed universale.’” Saggi e Memorie di storia dell’arte, 22 (1998), pp. 129, 131-287

Rosand, David. Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State. Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001

Programma per la decorazione del palazzo Ducale dopo l’incendio del 20 dicembre 1577. Manuscript. Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Cod. Cicogna, 105

Sansovino, Francesco and Giovanni Stringa. Venetia Città Nobilissima, et Singolare. Venice: Altobello Salicato, 1604. Link to the Book

Wolters, Wolfgang. “Der Programmentwurf zur Dekoration des Dogenpalastes nach dem Brand vom 20. Dezember 1577.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 12, 3/4 (1966): 271-318

Wolters, Wolfgang. Storia e politica nei dipinti di Palazzo Ducale. Venice: Arsenale Editrice, 1987