Restoration of the Cappella Badoer-Giustinian, image of the Madonna dell'Umilità and Statue of St. Louis of Toulouse

Save Venice Inc. brought three projects in the Church of San Francesco della Vigna to completion during the year.

The Cappella Badoer-Giustinian was restored in memory of one of the founding fathers of the international private organizations for Venice, John MacAndrew, and his wife Betty. The chapel is faced with relief sculptures that were probably salvaged from an early-Renaissance choir screen formerly in the body of the church, as happened in the churches of S. Giovanni in Bragora and S. Stefano. The refinement, harmony and elegance revealed in the early-fifteenth-century Madonna dell'Umiltà, an image in which the Virgin is seated humbly on the ground or on a cushion rather than enthroned in glory, make its restoration one of the most significant in recent years. The third item was an early alabaster statue of St. Louis of Toulouse, known as S. Alvise in Venice.

Another church that has received consistent support from Save Venice is that of S. Giovanni in Bragora, where this year work on the Chapel of S. Giovanni Elemosinario was completed with restoration of the carved and gilded wooden sarcophagus lid. The American committee confirmed its commitment to maintenance as the key to staving off the risks always involved in restoration by attending to the famous altarpiece by Cima da Conegliano in the Church of Madonna dell'Orto. And it ensured that the two fine Baroque holy-water stoups at the entrance to the Church of the Salutate were once again ready for use by the Festa della Salute in December.

Lead Organization / Sector / Office: Save Venince Inc.