LOMBARDO, Pietro
(b. ca. 1435, Carona, d. 1515, Venezia)

Monument of Pietro Mocenigo

1476-81
Istrian stone and marble
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice

Pietro Lombardo's tomb of Doge Pietro Mocenigo (d. 1476;) is his grandest funerary monument. Francesco Sansovino (1581) indicated that both Tullio and Antonio worked on it with Pietro, but their contribution is difficult to isolate. The tomb dates from between 1476 and 1481.

The vast wall tomb, arranged in the form of a triumphal arch, fills nearly one-third of the interior façade of the church and originally included 17 figures. The Doge stands on top of his sarcophagus, which is supported by three warriors, in the centre of the arch. This is flanked by three storeys of niches containing figures of warriors and pages on each side. The base is decorated with reliefs of the Labours of Hercules and Roman trophy designs. The standing figure of the Doge in armour, the reliefs of his military victories on the sarcophagus, the absence of a recumbent effigy, the triumphal arch format and allusions to trophies and Hercules all proclaim the triumphant and secular character of the monument. The only religious elements, a relief of the Three Marys at the Tomb and the figure of the Standing Christ (originally flanked by St Mark and St Theodore, now transferred to the contiguous Alvise Mocenigo monument), are placed at the summit of the monument, so far distant from the spectator as to seem secondary.

Originally the tomb must have been even more spectacular since it was gilded and polychromed, traces of which can be discerned in the niches and figures.