The San Francesco della Vigna monastic complex: Art History in Focus' Venice Palaces and Private Views Tour

The third day of the tour began with an early morning walk through Cannaregio that took us past Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo and concluded at San Francesco della Vigna in Castillo. The San Francesco della Vigna monastic complex includes a church, a monastery, and a vineyard. 

On the 25^th of June, 1253, Marco Ziani, son of Dodge Pietro, bequeathed a vineyard, houses, and a little church to the Franciscan friars.  The church that existed at the time had supposedly been built on the spot where, according to tradition, St. Mark had been driven ashore by a storm while on a return trip from Acquileia. The saint encountered an angel who told him that (i) the lagoon would be his final resting place and (ii) a city would grow therein and would call Mark its protector. 

The Church

The Franciscans built a medieval church in the vineyard shortly after gaining access to the land. This church was a triple-nave Gothic design built by Marino de Pisa. A monastery housed the monks. Both the church and the Friary were dedicated to St. Mark until the name of St. Francis usurped that role in the mid-1300s.

A new grand Friary with three large cloisters was built in the 15^th century. 

The medieval church was demolished in the first half of the 1500s and replaced with the current design.

The reconstruction was ordered by Doge Andrea Gritti who laid the foundation stone in August of 1534. The design utilized was that of the Florentine architect Jacopo Sansovino. The church was built on a Latin-cross plan with a wide central nave flanked by six chapels on either side. An additional four chapels were built in the Presbytery. 

The Franciscan friar, Fra Francisco Zorzi advised on the design of the church. He based the sizing of various elements on divisibility by three – in deference to the Holy Trinity. So, for example, the nave was nine paces wide and 27 paces long. 

The side chapels were sold to wealthy donors for 200 – 300 ducats per. The right to be buried in the floor below the high altar was granted to Doge Gritti for a contribution of 1,000 ducats. These contributions went towards construction and gave the donor the rights to (i) place coats-of-arms in the chapel and (ii) to bury their relatives there. 

The work on the church was substantially completed by the end of 1534 and yielded the first Renaissance church interior in Venice. The façade was not completed at this time. The church was consecrated in 1582. The pictures of the interior shown below were taken during our tour of the church on September 30, 2026.

Interior of San Francesco della Vigna

When Doge Gritti died, sponsorship of the church construction shifted to Giovanni Grimani, the Patriarch of Acquileia. A façade for the church presented a number of design/implementation issues, hence a lengthy period of façade-free use.  Grimani funded an Istrian stone façade by Andrea Palladio for the church. Palladio’s design cleverly addressed the issues and the work was done between 1564 and 1568. 

Exterior of San Francesco della Vigna

The consensus is that the church and monastery rank among the finest examples of Venetian Renaissance architecture. 

The Monastery

As was the case for similar Venetian institutions, the Friary was suppressed by Napolean in 1810, initially serving as a navy barracks then as an artillery barracks. During this period, many old ruins were demolished and the northern columns of the largest cloister bricked up. 

The Friary was bought back in 1881 and restored between 1953 and 1956 (isevenizia.it): 

• External loggia demolished

• Brick columns “freed” on two sides of the large cloisters

• Salt-eaten walls renovated

• Beams cleaned

• Minor superstructures demolished

• New wing added to the far west side to serve as an information hall and a provincial curia.

The monastery is now used for temporary exhibitions, concerts, and some Biennale exhibition events. One of its cloisters is the long-term resting place for noble Venetians while the other houses the library. 

The Library

The library may date as far back as 1260 but appears in the written record for the first time in 1437 when Pope Eugene IV named it in one of his edicts. It serves many roles today (masterisevenezia.it).

 First, it preserves, and makes available, valuable ancient books. Its current holdings have been rebuilt (since 1871) by acquisitions and donations from religious and lay people/institutions. 

The library of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies was established in 1987 to meet its academic needs. That library is housed in the monastery. 

The library collects, preserves, and catalogs the Venetian collection of the Province of St. Anthony of the Friars Minor. 

Since 2001 it has been incorporating ancient collections from closed convents of the Venetian province of St. Anthony OFM and from private individuals.

Vineyard and Wine

The name given to the church and monastery harkens back to their origin story. The original bequest to the Franciscans in 1263 was a vineyard plus buildings resident thereon. The monks have continued to tend surviving vines over the years to the present. The monastery is home to the oldest urban vineyard in Venice. 

For most of the 20^th century, the vineyard hosted the red grape varieties Teroldego del Trentino and Refosco del Friuli. The monastery has established a wine partnership with the Marzotto family (of Santa Margherita fame) to aid in the management of the vineyard and wine production.  In 1929 the Santa Margherita agronomists removed the red varieties and replaced them with Malvasia and Glera (the prosecco grape). 

The existing vineyard has a surface area of 1600 square meters and it has been divided between the Malvasia (400 sq meters) and Glera (1200 sq meters) varieties. The soil in the Glera zone is sandy, quick-drying and influenced by the salty water. The vines are trained simple Guyot with a pole for each vine and with plants set 1 meter apart. 

The Malvasia grapes are grown in a more sheltered area. They are trained espalier Guyot with 80 cm between the vines, Soils here are less subject to brackish water: they take a longer time to absorb water but also need more time to dry out. 

The vineyard is farmed organically, and operations are conducted by hand. 

The Santa Margharita enologists produce a wine named Harmonia Mundi from these grapes. 

The initial vintage was 2022 wherein 1,107 numbered bottles were produced. The wine is a sparkling type made using the Charmat method and spending 6 months on its lees. 

St Jerome Writing: One of the multitude of Caravaggios at Rome's Galleria Borghese

On one of my prior trips to Rome, Lidia, Brandon, and I had planned to visit Galleria Borghese to view the Caravaggios on offer there. Visits to the Capitoline Museum and Galleria Dora Pamphilj sucked up most of the day, however, and rendered that plan inoperable. I was not going to make the same mistake twice so when Karen and I went back into Rome, I only engaged in one activity before beelining toward Galleria Borghese. The walk from the bus stop to the museum, and getting into the museum without pre-bought tickets, proved a little more complicated that I had expected but we made it in. I was flabbergasted. Beautiful space and a veritable feast of famous works by famous artists. 

I almost forgot that I was on a mission. And then I got to the area where the Caravaggios were displayed. Six masterpieces: David with the Head of Goliath; Madonna and Child with St Anne; Saint Jerome Writing; Saint John the Baptist; Boy with a Basket of Fruit; and Self-Portrait as Bacchus. I will examine the St Jerome further in this post.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Jerome
Writing, c. 1606 (Galleria Borghese, Rome; viewed
in situ August 30, 2026)

Saint Jerome Writing was prepared by Caravaggio in fulfillment of a commission for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. According to The Met, Borghese (1576 - 1633) "was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Rome during the first third of the seventeenth century. An astute art collector, he commissioned sculptures that would come to define the Baroque movement."

The work shows an aged St Jerome on the right-hand-side of the painting peering intently onto a page of a thick tome. He has a hint of a halo above his head and his left shoulder, back, and lower body are covered by a voluminous red garment. His outstretched arm appears to be resting on the opened page from which he is reading. The thumb and forefinger lightly embrace a quill which appears silvery in the cast light. That light also illuminates his right arm, face, and chest as well as part of the book. There appears to be a malformation of the forearm. Saint Jerome is depicted as a scholar herein; according to tradition, he had translated the Holy Scripture from Greek to Latin. In the days prior to the Reformation, he would be shown with a Lion and a cardinal's hat. The Reformers sought to return religious art to its foundations hence the presentation of the saint in his raison d' etré (Galleria Borghese).

At the other end of the solid brown wooden table is another open book which, given the proximity of the quill, one can conjecture, is the recipient of the written word. Positioned on that book is a skull which, when paired with the grey-white cloth draping down from the table, has the look of a person surveying the Saint's work.

In typical mature Carravagio style, the background is darkened, the areas of focus sharply lit, and there is a profusion of shadow. There is not much separation between the painted scene and the viewer.

The painting provides us with a series of contrasts: life (albeit aged) in the person of the saint versus the promise of death embodied in the skull; warm colors on the Saint's side versus a dull grayness on the other; and, finally, a temporal contrast with the skull representing the past and the saint representing the present.

There has been some discussion as to the completeness of this painting. Antonio Ionnelli, writing in the Galleria Borghese Catalog Entry: "The limited quantity of paint used in the work, the summary representation of some details -- such as the irregularity of the beard and the rapid execution of the cassock -- as well as several elements that seem to indicate that the painter had second thoughts -- evident in the left hand, right arm, the face and the pose of the saint -- inclined Maurizio Marini to propose that the painting was unfinished. In 1989, however, Mia Cinotti rejected this idea."

This work had been attributed to Caravaggio at least since 1633 and was recorded as hanging in the premises in the middle of the 17th century. Despite the foregoing, it was mistakenly attributed to Jusepe de Ribera in 1790 and only regained its rightful authorship when it was included in a 1951 Roberto Longhi exhibition of Caravaggio works.

In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca: The Venice Sequel -- Saint Jerome and a Donor

Experts are uncertain as to when* Saint Jerome and a Donor was painted but, according to Alessandro Angelini (Piero della Francesca, SCALA, 2023), it is "probably to be included amongst the 'many paintings of small figures' mentioned by Vasari as being commissioned by several rulers during the artist's journeys in the Marches and Emilia Romagna."

The painting is currently resident in the Gallerie dell'Accademia and I happened upon it, with no foreknowledge, while traversing its halls. It shows St Jerome dressed in a tunic which is cinched at the waist with a thorny branch. He is sitting on a stone bench and pauses in the midst of his reading as a supplicant kneels before him.

Piero della Francesca, St Jerome and a Donor

Piero's signature appears on the truncated tree trunk that serves as the base of the crucifix. The inscription in the foreground identifies the supplicant as Gerolama Amadi, a member of a wealthy merchant family from Lucca. Gerolama has commissioned the work.

"The donor and his protecting saint appear to be conversing as equals, for it was obviously Piero's intention to exalt the human dignity of his patron ... The bright hues of color are similar to the clear sunlit atmosphere of the London Baptism of Christ, and even the background, with its rolling hills and steep country paths, confirms a vision of landscape that was first anticipated in the London painting ... with bare hills, partially covered with vegetation ... burnt out by a Mediterranean sun, the city walls are made of white lime and the water of the river is transparent" (Angelini). 

As is the case in many of Piero's paintings, there is a distinct verticality in the effort.

The painting was previously owned by Count Bernardino Renier and was a legacy from his wife Felicita Bertrand Helmann to the Gallerie in 1850 in keeping with her husband's will.

Piero della Francesca

Italian

1412/16 - 1492

Saint Jerome and a Donor

49 x 42 cm

Gallerie dell'Accademia

Catalog #: 47 

Legacy of Felicita Renier, 1850

*According to the institution, "the chronological location of the painting in Piero's production has been the subject of lively discussion, even if we tend to accept its dating at the beginning of the seventh decade of the fifteenth century, just after the Resurrection of Christ of the Municipal Art Gallery of Sansepolcro, datable approximately to 1458 - 59, with which it shows some affinities in the relationship between the figures and the hilly background."

In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca: The Paris Sequel -- The Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta

Energized by an In his Footsteps tour of Piero della Francesca's working range, I have been on a months-long quest to identify and view his paintings that have migrated beyond those borders. I had identified the Louvre as the home of his Malatesta portrait (Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, 1451) but the area wherein the piece was housed was closed on the occasions that I visited. I was finally able to see the painting when I visited the institution with my daughter in August of this year.

Piero della Francesca, Portrait of Sigismondo
Pandolfo Malatesta, 1451

The subject of the painting was a powerful and ambitious mercenary captain with an "immense capacity for cruelty." He was born in 1417 and inherited the lordship of Rimini from his father. "... from the outset his life was one of warfare, political intrigue and ceaseless ambition." He fought for and against many Italian states as well as the Papacy, eventually becoming the biter enemy of Pope Pius II.

Malatesta surrounded himself with scholars, poets and artists and this "intellectual curiosity" and "enlightened patronage" transformed Rimini into a "vibrant center of Renaissance culture" (wonderfulmuseums.com). As a part of his image and legacy building initiatives, Malatesta was remaking the modest family Franciscan church -- Tempo Malatestino -- into a "classical temple and personal mausoleum" (wonderfulmuseums.com). Towards that end he invited Piero della Francesca to come to Rimini and paint a fresco in the church of him kneeling in front of his namesake saint.While conducting that effort, Piero was asked to paint the standalone portrait.

Alessandro Angelini (Piero della Francesca, SCALA, 2023) stipulates that the portrait was modeled on a medal made by Pisanelli for Sigismondo. "What was just an emblem on a coin becomes a fully rounded, almost sculptured portrait, with a proud expression of unrelenting cruelty. The three-dimensional effect is achieved also by a most realistic skin tonality, created with the technique of oil paint."

Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (Piero della Francesca, 1972) sees the profile as "fiercely silhouetted against an almost too solid dark background" where the "dark red hair is made to fit like a tight cap around the skull. His tucked, cut-velvet jacket stands as stiff as a pedestal, supporting the column of his neck ... A counter-light coming from behind illuminates the back edge of his neck with a warm glow ..."

And wonderfulmuseums.com describes the piece variously as "a cornerstone of Renaissance painting," "an awe-inspiring masterpiece," and as "instantly recognizable for its stark profile and the enigmatic aura of its subject."

Piero della Francesco

Italian

1412/16 - 1492

Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta

1451

Oil on wood (poplar)

44.9 x 34 cm

Musée du Louvre

Room 709, Denon

Inventory #: RF 19781

Acquired: 1978

Ownership: Etat

Held by: Musée du Louvre, departement des Peintures

Pala Feriale: the first “cover” for Basilica San Marco’s Pala d’Oro

In 1342 Doge Andrea Dandolo ordered the enhancements to the Pala d’Oro which resulted in its current configuration. In 1345 he commissioned Paolo Veneziano to create a “cover” for the altarpiece so that it would be protected on days when not on display (special occasions and high-feast days).

Paolo Veneziano, the pre-eminent Venetian painter in the 14th century, is widely regarded as the founder of the Venetian school of painting; the bridge between the Byzantine and Gothic traditions and the “nascent humanism of the early Renaissance.”

Paolo came from a family of painters: his father was a painter, as was his sons. His date of birth is unknown but, given that both his sons Giovanni and Luca signed the dated product discussed herein, scholars have used that as a basis to approximate his age. No consensus has emerged.

As discussed in my post on the Pala d’Oro, a pulley system was utilized to fold the top segment into the lower when the altarpiece was not in use. Veneziano would have to address that fact in his delivered solution.

Paolo met the requirements by creating two segments of wooden panels, each measuring 57 x 325 cm, and painting images of the dead Christ flanked by St. George, St Mark, the Virgin, St. John, St Peter, and St Nicholas on the top portion and scenes from the life of St Mark on the bottom portion.

Paolo Veneziano (with sons Giovanni and Luca), 
Pala Feriale, 1345

There is a marked contrast in the mood conveyed in the two segments, as is to be expected with the dead Christ centering the upper portion. The lower portion includes scenes such as the conveyance of St Mark’s body to Venice and the miraculous discovery of his missing body on the day of the consecration of the basilica.

“For most of its history the Pala d’Oro was hidden. It stood behind the altar and was covered for ordinary use by a painted wooden panel … That practice preserved it. Exposure to candle smoke, incense and handling is what destroys enamel and gilding, and the Pala spent most of the last seven hundred years behind a shutter” (byzantine culture.com).

Today Pala Feriale is displayed in the San Marco Museum. It was restored in 1995.

Pala d'Oro at St Mark's Basilica: Art History in Focus Venice Palaces and Private Views

Wednesday was a full day on the Art History in Focus Palaces and Private Views tour of Venice and was capped by a private post-dinner tour of St. Mark's Basilica.

Having relatively unencumbered access to this famed religious site was a treat but viewing it under lights took the experience to another level. I walked, wide-eyed, through the structure as Luisella explained the history, architecture, and religious iconography associated with the building but the foregoing was no preparation for my first sighting of the Palo d'Oro.

I made a right-hand turn into the passageway just before the Altar and was brought to a stop by a large, segmented painting of Jesus and the Disciples.

After snapping a pic, I continued along only to run into a traffic jam as my fellow tour members had stopped to look at something to my left which I could not yet see. I pushed along to get a better view of the object and was stunned by a breathtakingly beautiful, bejeweled golden structure that appeared to reflect every photon of light present in the building. This was, Luisella explained, the Pala d'Oro. 

As described by byzantinelegacy.com, Pala d'Oro is basically an altar screen of gold studded with hundreds of gems. According to this source, Pala derives from the Latin palla (cloth). These cloths, sometimes decorated with images of saints, were used to cover the altar or embellish its background. Over time, these cloths were upgraded to gold or silver coverings.

This stunning Byzantine gold and enamel altarpiece is, according to stmarksbasilica.com, "universally considered to be the most precious and refined expression of Byzantine genius." It is the largest surviving assemblage of Byzantine cloisonné enamel in the world.

"The most expensive Byzantine art was not painting. A gold reliquary set with cloisonné enamel plates represented an investment of precious metal, imported stone and highly specialised labor that no panel or fresco could approach, and it was this work ... that western visitors described with the most open envy" (byzantineculture.com). 

Enameling is the fusing of powdered glass to metal using heat. The cloisonné technique, favored by the Byzantines, involved (byzantineculture.com): (i) outlining the design with thin gold strips that were soldered or placed on edge on a gold base; (ii) filling the cells thus created with powdered glass of different colors; (iii) firing(s); and (iv) grinding and polishing to finish. Full-ground meant that the entire surface of the plate was enameled (a process used up to around the 10th century). In sunk-ground, a recess is cut into a gold plate and only the figure is enameled. This was the method preferred during the middle Byzantine period.

The structure and iconography of the altarpiece is illustrated in the two charts below.

As indicated in the first of the two charts above, the current structure came together over a number of years. The bottom portion of the altarpiece was commissioned by Doge Faliere in 1102 and was delivered from Constantinople in 1105. It was enlarged with the top portion in 1209 using spoils from the Pantocrator Monastery taken during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The altarpiece took its final shape during the course of 1342 -1345 when the Sienese goldsmith Giovanni Paolo Boninsegna was given the task of combining the elements within a gothic frame and distributing precious stones throughout the assemblage.

A total of 1300 stones are spread across the face of the altarpiece. This number was established in a 1796 census and subsequent counts bear it out. The stones are mostly uncut or simply polished in the medieval manner. The stones signified alignment with the jeweled walls of the heavenly Jerusalem.

The two sections of the Pala d'Oro were hinged such that the upper portion could be folded over the lower through pulleys connected to two columns at the rear of the assemblage. The final restoration to the structure dates back to 1836 - 47 when the upper section was firmly joined to the lower. This work was carried out  by the goldsmiths Lorenzo and Pietro Fauro.

The altarpiece had faced the nave until 1958 when a special lifting-and-rotating mechanism was installed. This system allowed the altarpiece to face the nave on the special days and then be turned to the rear where it could be comfortably admired at other times (basilicasanmarco.it).

Vermeer's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

In the Vermeer painting Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, the latter sits at Christ’s feet while Martha stoops to offer him a loaf of bread in a wicker basket.

Johannes Vermeer, Christ in the House
of Martha and Mary, 1654 - 55 

The National Gallery of Scotland (its place of residence) describes this piece as one of the largest that Vermeer had created and the only known one covering a biblical topic. 

This painting shows an artist seeking a path. According to the National Gallery of Scotland (NGS), this picture "belongs to a small group of very early works which show the artist experimenting with various techniques and combining various influences in Dutch and Flemish art. ... The strong play of shadow and light, the characterization of the figures and broad handling of paint were probably inspired by the work of artists from Utrecht, who in turn were in turn inspired by Caravaggio's art" (The chart below shows my characterization of the path from Caravaggio to these "Utrecht Caravaggisti").

But it also provides flashes of the mastery that would become a hallmark of the painters mature offerings: "The lay of light on different surfaces such as the loaf of bread or the different fabrics is closely observed. The handling of the shape and color also has something of a distilled quality that we associate with the artist. Even the statesque figure of Martha, with her downcast eyes, seems like a precursor of the tranquil women who occupy Vermeer's later interiors, caught in suspended animation as they perform the simplest of domestic tasks."

The painting's size and topic suggests that it was created for a specific commission but its ownership is unclear prior to it surfacing in a private English collection as a Raphael. A cleaning in1901 revealed the Vermeer signature and its true authorship.

Graham-Dixon (Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found) sees the figure of Christ in this work as having been “lifted directly from The Death of St Joseph” by the Neapolitan Caravaggio follower Andrea Vaccaro. “The figures are nearly identical in physiognomy and pose, down to the exact position of their hands, the one difference being that Vaccaro’s Christ is standing and Vermeer's’s seated."

Andrea Vaccaro, The Death of St. Joseph, c. 1650 

Christ, according to Graham-Dixon, "addresses the stooping Martha in the manner of a mild and forbearing schoolmaster correcting a pupil who has made an innocent mistake." Further, by showing Martha with "lowered eyes and a solemn expression," the suggestion is that she understands the message that Jesus is conveying.

The NGS only suggests that this painting was made as a private commission but Graham-Dixon goes a little further by asserting that the buyer had to be someone who disagreed emphatically with the Calvinist position that faith alone is sufficient for the attainment of salvation. Martha is the meek and humble bearer of a gift, a loaf of bread, which immediately identifies her with the first of the seven Christian Acts of Mercy, feeding the hungry.

Graham-Dixon sees the painting as "turned more towards a female gaze" and, given its size, it may have been an altarpiece in a private, home-based chapel.