Monument of Pietro Mocenigo

Pietro Lombardo came to Venice from Lombardy and was a sculptor/architect. He is mentioned in Bologna and Padua and is thought to have been in Florence during the 1460s. With his sons and his workshop, Pietro was responsible for many tombs in Venice during the last quarter of the century. All are based on the triumphal arch.

The Monument of Pietro Mocenigo (restored in 1984) bears some relationship to Rizzo's Tron monument but has more thoroughly digested ancient sources and treat secular subjects with greater ease. (Rizzo was Pietro's predecessor as main architect of the Palazzo Ducale.) Both tombs have niches ranged above each other and inserted in the architectural framework of the monument. Pietro Lombardo had set the standing figure of the doge as a 'miles christanus' (Christian soldier) high upon a sarcophagus showing scenes of the main events of his time in office. Rizzo instead places his doge, who wears the robes of state, at the bottom, standing in the middle of the monument's complex architecture.