Graziani Garzadori Altar
Santa Corona
Contrà Santa Corona
Vicenza, May 2025
“Attached to the wall of the fifth bay on the left is the Garzadori Altar, the most sumptuous in the city, built in the early 16th century by the workshop of Tommaso da Lugano and Bernardino da Como, with contributions from Rocco da Vicenza, designed vertically with a mixed order of columns, pilasters, and pillars. Framing the arch are four ringed columns, adorned with garlands at the base; the upper shafts of the two more prominent ones have Corinthian capitals, while the two recessed ones have Ionic capitals spiraling upward. Flanking the arch are two narrow recessed pilasters with the Garzadori crests adorned with an imperial eagle and animal heads in the capitals. At the ends, two wider pillars with sphinges in the capitals support the entablature, above which, aligned with the columns, four small pillars hold a wide lowered arch pediment, with a coffered and rosette-decorated intrados and an extrados enriched with bicaudate Nereids and topped by the Redeemer. Within the tympanum, under a garland of flowers and fruit, is a medallion depicting the Virgin nursing the Child; on either side of the attic, two pairs of facing dolphins hold flaming vases. Throughout are embedded small and large paterae of polychrome marbles brought by Graziani from Palestine, like the black touchstone inserted in the pedestals or those forming a cross adorning the altar frontal of the table. The altar houses Giovanni Bellini's masterpiece, Baptism of Christ, which was painted around 1500–1502.” (Santa Corona, Wikipedia)
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