Save Venice is seeking sponsors for the conservation of Giandomenico Tiepolo’s The Crowning of Demosthenes and Cicero Defends Quintus Ligarius in the Palazzo Ducale.

*Published sponsorship costs are subject to change due to conservation plan modifications and fluctuations in exchange rates.

Please contact kim@savevenice.org today for more information and the latest cost estimates.

For centuries, the Senate Room in the Palazzo Ducale stood at the heart of Venetian political life. Established in the 13th century as a select committee of the Great Council, the Senate gradually became one of the Republic’s most powerful institutions, overseeing finances, commerce, diplomacy, and foreign affairs. Within these walls, senators debated matters that shaped the destiny of Venice, from commercial alliances and military campaigns to the government of its extensive maritime empire.

The room as we see it today is largely the result of the reconstruction that followed the devastating fire of 1574. Over the following decades, leading Venetian painters, including Domenico Tintoretto, Jacopo Palma il Giovane, and Andrea Vicentino, transformed its walls and richly coffered ceiling into a magnificent celebration of the Republic’s power and political ideals. Completed by 1595, the decorative program presented Venice as a state guided by divine protection, justice, and wise government, turning the very space in which political decisions were made into a powerful expression of civic identity.

Nearly two centuries later, in 1775, Giandomenico Tiepolo, son of the celebrated Giambattista, was commissioned to complete the decoration surrounding the Doge’s throne. Given the solemnity of the setting, two episodes from classical antiquity were chosen, celebrating eloquence and the power of rhetoric through the lives of the ancient world’s most illustrious orators: the Greek Demosthenes and the Roman Cicero. Drawing on the tradition of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, Tiepolo painted two monumental canvases in grisaille, a technique that uses shades of a single color to evoke the appearance of sculpted reliefs. On the left, The Crowning of Demosthenes after His Speech against Aeschines depicts the great Athenian orator being crowned by Ctesiphon before the Areopagus in recognition of his services to the city. Opposite, Cicero Defends Quintus Ligarius captures the Roman statesman in the midst of his impassioned defense of a general accused of opposing Julius Caesar, who appears as the judge before whom Cicero pleads his case.

The choice of subjects and the restrained monochromatic palette reflect the growing influence of Neoclassicism in Venice, although Tiepolo’s interpretation remains rooted in the lively narrative tradition of Venetian painting. By translating the exuberant pictorial language of his father into shades of gray, Giandomenico found a medium particularly suited to his gifts as a storyteller, recalling the expressive immediacy of his drawings. His taste for vivid detail is especially evident in The Crowning of Demosthenes, where he sets the scene near the harbor of Piraeus and includes a stone lion inspired by one of the ancient Greek sculptures brought to Venice and still displayed outside the Arsenal.

Installed on either side of the Doge’s throne, the paintings carried a message that would have resonated deeply with the senators assembled in the room. Demosthenes and Cicero, celebrated since antiquity for their mastery of the spoken word, embodied the power of eloquence in the service of public life. Their examples reminded Venice’s rulers that effective government depended not only on authority and political experience, but also on wisdom, persuasion, and devotion to the common good. Far more than decorative additions, Tiepolo’s grisailles extended the room’s longstanding celebration of civic virtue into the final decades of the Venetian Republic, transforming the space itself into a powerful reflection on the responsibilities of those entrusted with governing the state.

The two paintings were last restored between 1983 and 1987. Today, they show localized flaking and paint loss, while earlier pictorial reintegration has become discolored and the protective varnish has progressively yellowed, obscuring the clarity, depth, and chromatic balance of the compositions.

The conservation treatment will begin with the careful removal of the paintings from their frames, followed by comprehensive photographic documentation before, during, and after the intervention. Surface cleaning, consolidation of unstable paint layers, treatment of the wooden stretchers, and the selective removal of degraded varnish and altered retouching will improve the visual readability of the paintings while preserving their material integrity. Chromatic reintegration will be confined exclusively to areas of paint loss, respecting the authenticity of the surviving original surface while visually re-establishing the continuity of the compositions. Finally, a UV-resistant protective varnish will be applied to restore color saturation, enhance visual coherence, and ensure the paintings’ long-term preservation.

Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727 – 1804)
The Crowning of Demosthenes after His Speech against Aeschines
1775, oil on canvas
85 x 380 cm

Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727 – 1804)
Cicero Defends Quintus Ligarius
1775, oil on canvas
85 x 380 cm

Lucchese, Enrico. Tiepolo, Giandomenico. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 95. Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 2019, ad vocem. Link to the Article

Mariuz, Adriano. Giandomenico Tiepolo. Venice: Alfieri, 1971, p. 145

Mariuz, Adriano.  Giandomenico Tiepolo. In Mariuz, Adriano. Tiepolo. Ed. by Pavanello, Giuseppe. Verona: Cierre edizioni, 2013, pp. 87-88