Pontifical Ceremony in Saints Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1782 (c. 1783): Art, History and Details

Pontifical Ceremony in Saints Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1782 (c. 1783) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Francesco Guardi (Italian, 1712–1793).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The second scene in the series depicts Pius VI celebrating mass in the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, one of the largest churches in Venice and the pope’s residence during his stay. The mass included a performance of the Te Deum, a prayer of thanksgiving set to music by the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). Traditionally, the Te Deum was recited in thanks to God for a special blessing, including a papal election or a royal coronation, and thus was appropriate for this historic papal visit.

Object facts

• Title: Pontifical Ceremony in Saints Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1782
• Date: c. 1783
• Creator attribution: Francesco Guardi (Italian, 1712–1793)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 69.2 x 87 x 11.4 cm (27 1/4 x 34 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 51.4 x 68.8 cm (20 1/4 x 27 1/16 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1949.187.2

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry S. “Two Historical Pictures by Francesco Guardi.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 3 (March 1950): 48–54.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.