MANSUETI, Giovanni

The Confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice called upon the most respected Venetian painters of the period, including Pietro Perugino, Vittore Carpaccio, Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani and Benedetto Diana to paint nine canvases for the Great Hall of their headquarters showing the Miracles of the Holy Cross, the story of the miracles performed by the fragment of wood from the Cross on which Jesus was crucified. This fragment had been donated to the brotherhood in 1369 by Philip de Mezi�res, Chancellor of the Kingdom of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and had soon become an object of great veneration and the symbol of the Scuola, one of the most important and wealthy Venetian confraternities.

The canvas painted by Perugino has been lost, but the eight surviving paintings executed between 1496 and 1501, contain depictions of some of the most famous parts of Venice. Since the imposing series of pictures (known as ‘teleri’) are all in the Accademia now it is easy to compare them.

This canvas deals with a miraculous event which took place in 1474 during the funeral of a member of the Confraternity who had not believed firmly in the relic of the Holy Cross during his life. The reliquary containing the sacred fragment was taken to the funeral in the church of S. Lio but in the square outside the church it became so heavy that it could not be carried over the threshold. Another cross had therefore to be used while the one containing the Holy relic was entrusted to the care of the parish priest of S. Lio. The presentation of Campo S. Lio is rather static and analytical, the figural rhythms monotonous and the colouring somewhat lacking in richness and interest, but the picture is nevertheless valuable for the evidence it offers of the architecture and costumes of the time.

The Confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice called upon the most respected Venetian painters of the period, including Pietro Perugino, Vittore Carpaccio, Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani and Benedetto Diana to paint nine canvases for the Great Hall of their headquarters showing the Miracles of the Holy Cross, the story of the miracles performed by the fragment of wood from the Cross on which Jesus was crucified. This fragment had been donated to the brotherhood in 1369 by Philip de Mezi�res, Chancellor of the Kingdom of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and had soon become an object of great veneration and the symbol of the Scuola, one of the most important and wealthy Venetian confraternities.

The canvas painted by Perugino has been lost, but the eight surviving paintings executed between 1496 and 1501, contain depictions of some of the most famous parts of Venice. Since the imposing series of pictures (known as ‘teleri’) are all in the Accademia now it is easy to compare them.

This canvas deals with a miraculous event which took place in 1474 during the funeral of a member of the Confraternity who had not believed firmly in the relic of the Holy Cross during his life. The reliquary containing the sacred fragment was taken to the funeral in the church of S. Lio but in the square outside the church it became so heavy that it could not be carried over the threshold. Another cross had therefore to be used while the one containing the Holy relic was entrusted to the care of the parish priest of S. Lio. The presentation of Campo S. Lio is rather static and analytical, the figural rhythms monotonous and the colouring somewhat lacking in richness and interest, but the picture is nevertheless valuable for the evidence it offers of the architecture and costumes of the time.

For his somewhat naive urbanscape, Mansueti may have borrowed not only from Gentile Bellini but also, to a lesser extent, from Carpaccio.

Giovanni Mansueti, a pupil of Gentile Bellini, is best-known for his large-scale narrative canvases painted for the meeting rooms of the Venetian confraternities, but he also painted a large number of altarpieces and smaller devotional works such as the present panel showing the Madonna and Child with Sts Francis and Andrew. In this case, however, he seems to have been more influenced by the work of Giovanni Bellini.

This relatively small panel shows a subject that became very popular in Venetian painting in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, thanks above all to the example of Giovanni Bellini. Mansueti shows many of the details that had already become conventional for paintings of the subject: the crucifix, the lion, the rustic dwelling, the discarded cardinal’s robe and hat, and symbols of human mortality, such as the skull and hourglass. But in contrast to St Jerome pictures by Bellini and by other Venetian painters such as Cima and Lotto, Mansueti packs his composition with an enormous amount of further detail: a bear, a stoat, a dog, a deer, a rabbit, two monkeys, and two leopards in the foreground; a shepherd with sheep and cows in the right middleground; a river with gondoliers, washerwomen, swans and ducks, also in the middleground; and winding roads, with a man and his donkey, and other men walking and riding, leading the eye to a church, a castle, and distant mountains in the background. The overall effect is cluttered. Nevertheless, in part because of the very naivety of the expression, the picture communicates a sense of delight in an orderly, domesticated world, where God’s creatures, human and animal, coexist in peace and harmony.

The Confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice called upon the most respected Venetian painters of the period, including Pietro Perugino, Vittore Carpaccio, Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani and Benedetto Diana to paint nine canvases for the Great Hall of their headquarters showing the Miracles of the Holy Cross, the story of the miracles performed by the fragment of wood from the Cross on which Jesus was crucified. This fragment had been donated to the brotherhood in 1369 by Philip de Mezi�res, Chancellor of the Kingdom of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and had soon become an object of great veneration and the symbol of the Scuola, one of the most important and wealthy Venetian confraternities.

The canvas painted by Perugino has been lost, but the eight surviving paintings executed between 1496 and 1501, contain depictions of some of the most famous parts of Venice. Since the imposing series of pictures (known as ‘teleri’) are all in the Accademia now it is easy to compare them.

The subject of this ‘telero’ is the miraculous healing in 1414 of the little daughter of Benvegnudo. Having been paralysed ever since birth, she gained the use of her limbs after touching the three candles which her father had placed on the relic of the Holy Cross. The interior of the richly decorated and furnished room and the animation of the watching crowd are described with inventorial precision.