Restored in 1980 with Save Venice general funds.

In Francesco Maggiotto’s painting of Penitence and Meditation in the Giustinian dei Vescovi Chapel at San Francesco della Vigna, Penitence is represented by a woman in the center of the scene, gazing intently towards the light radiating from heaven above her. The personification of Meditation holds a closed book and rests her head in her hand, a position that symbolizes contemplation and melancholy, and keeps her finger inside the book on the page that she was reading. Above her, a small angel offers a cross as a sign of salvation to the figure representing Penitence. She holds a scourge, a penitential instrument, and looks upward in the direct of the divine light. Below her, a second putto points toward the funerary monument of Saint Peter of Alcantara — to whom the chapel was dedicated — encouraging the viewer to contemplate the saint’s sacrifices. The oval-shaped canvas functions as a pendant to that of Jacopo Marieschi, which depicts the three Theological Virtues.

Francesco Maggiotto was the son of the painter Domenico Maggiotto, who had studied with Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. Influenced by Giambattista Tiepolo and Pietro Longhi, Francesco Maggiotto specialized in historic subjects, allegories, and moralistic genre scenes. He trained the next generation of Venetian painters whose careers would flourish during the early nineteenth century.

The work was restored by conservators Serafino and Ferruccio Volpin, with the guidance of project director Sandro Sponza 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.

Francesco Maggiotto (1738–1805)
Penitence and Meditation
1789, oil on canvas
133 x 104 cm