These magnificent monochrome frescoes commemorating the glories and achievements of the Porto family from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries were painted around 1760 by Giandomenico Tiepolo for the Palazzo da Porto Festa in Vicenza, built by Andrea Palladio (fig. 1). The scion of a wealthy patrician family, Giambattista Orazio da Porto (1730–1816) commissioned the artist and his father Giambattista to collaborate in the decoration of three of the palazzo’s main rooms. Giandomenico produced the present series immortalising Porto’s forefathers. Visually highly arresting, the set of six scenes is painted predominantly in monochrome tones, combining the texture of brushwork in fresco with lustrous gold leaf. Indeed, the three-dimensional impression is enhanced by the contrast between the figures, painted in tones of buff and grey, with yellow highlights and touches of blue, and the striking gold skies and fictive dark grey frames. The tradition of imitating sculpture here takes the form of a distinctive trompe-l’œil illusionism on an ambitious scale, demonstrating to splendid effect the unrivalled expertise of the Tiepolo family as the greatest exponents of fresco decoration in eighteenth-century Venetian painting.

A stylistic analysis of the works produced suggests that the father limited himself to working on the ceiling of the main salone, where he painted the oval fresco depicting the Apotheosis of Orazio da Porto, which is now in the Seattle Art Museum (fig. 2).¹ Giandomenico, meanwhile, produced the present series celebrating the triumphs of the Porto family, and for a smaller room another set, still in situ, comprising three parts, possibly commissioned to replace Paolo Veronese’s three allegories on canvas from 1551–52, which are today split between the Vatican and the Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome.² To this day, Domenico Brusasorci’s fresco of the Fall of the Giants can still be seen on the ceiling of the room in which the present series probably hung.

History of a Dynasty
While the frescoes celebrate the triumphant feats of the condottieri of the Porto family over the course of seven centuries, the chronological order also provides the modern viewer with an overarching timeline which illustrates the political shifts and events of medieval and early modern Europe. The cycle illustrates the varying fortunes and ever-changing allegiances of Europe’s key players, and of course the fundamental role the Porto family played within the successes of the Republic of Venice, at times aligned with the Holy Roman Empire and latterly as an independent political force.

The first fresco shows Jacopo da Porto – count and knight, famed for his moral integrity and learning – kneeling before Holy Roman Emperor Henry II (also known as Saint Henry), who appoints him Governor of Vicenza in 1022. Two river gods accompany them to the left, while Palladio's celebrated Basilica in Vicenza features as a distinctive yet anachronistic landmark in the background. Soldiers with the imperial standard are just visible to the right.

The second fresco shows Donato da Porto joining the ranks of the Patricians of the Venetian Republic in 1379 in recognition of his help in attaining victory in the War of Chioggia against the Genoese Republic, Venice’s great rival on the seas. The Venetian Republic – La Serenissima – is personified by the enthroned female figure, represented with her symbol the winged Lion of Saint Mark, at the lower left, while the coins and trireme symbolise Donato's financial and naval assistance. Ships at sea are visible in the distance, lower right.

Tiepolo’s third fresco shows Gerolamo da Porto appointed Prefect of Piedmont in 1508 by the Venetian Republic, symbolised once more by the standing female figure accompanied by the Lion. By this date Venice and the Porto family were at war again, this time against an alliance composed of virtually every other major force in Europe, united under the banner of the League of Cambrai; the flags of the inimical Holy Roman Empire, France and the Papal States are visible beyond.

From the sixteenth century onwards, the Porto family were still participating in the struggle for European power: the fourth fresco commemorates Francesco da Porto's appointment in 1554 as General of the Venetian Republic. He kneels on the steps of Venice's throne as he receives the general's cap, while a page stands in attendance with the baton of command on a salver. Beyond are the fortified walls of Francesco's beloved Villa Porto Colleone in Thiene, near Vicenza.

The next fresco, the fifth in the series, shows Ippolito da Porto honoured by the Emperor Charles V – whose distinctive profile is readily recognisable – for capturing and handing over the Elector John Frederick, Duke of Saxony, wanted by Charles for his rebellious uprising. Ippolito, in full armour, points to a captive soldier, whose hands are shackled. Power in Europe was steadily being centralised by Charles V, as both internal rivals for his throne and foreign powers gradually submitted to his rule.

The fresco’s caption stating that Ippolito gave his life defending Venetian territories abroad at the battle of Corfu against the Turks, illustrates also the continuing Venetian dominance of the seas, a theme that leads on to the sixth and last fresco, arguably the highpoint of the family’s history, when in 1661, against a backdrop of a fortified town, Giovanni Battista da Porto is appointed supreme commander and given the keys to Crete, Palma and Mantua.

The frescoes had always been assumed to be by Giambattista until 1943 when Vigni reassigned them to Giandomenico, proposing a dating of circa 1760 (see Literature). Preparatory drawings for the designs of Jacopo and Ippolito are known, the former in the Museo Civico in Trieste (fig. 3) and the latter in the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia (fig. 4). While Vigni assigned the latter to Giambattista – thereby proposing that the compositions were conceived by the father but executed by the son – Knox assigned both drawings to Giandomenico, thereby considering the whole creative process to be by the son. Morassi and Pallucchini, both writing in the 1960s, still saw Giambattista's hand in the frescoes and proposed a collaboration between father and son, though since Mariuz’s 1971 monograph all scholars have considered the works to be by Giandomenico alone.³ Mariuz in particular mentions that the hatching technique used to delineate texture, executed almost like an etching, betrays the hand of the son. On stylistic grounds the cycle is now accepted as the work of Giandomenico, although unquestionably influenced by his father in so effectively simulating sculpture.

While gold backgrounds are more often associated with Italian painting before 1500, there was a short revival in its popularity in the Veneto in the eighteenth century. Other examples of the artist’s work with a gold background include the eight trompe l’œil monochrome bas-reliefs from 1761–62 frescoed in Villa Pisani in Stra.⁴

The paintings are homogenous both in terms of composition and content. It is likely that the position in which each painting was destined to hang in the original room would have had a direct impact on the way the artist composed each design. The painted light-fall would have been conceived in such a way as to avoid contrast with the direction of natural light coming in from the windows. Various conceits heighten the sculptural illusion: the modelling of the figures at different depths within the picture plane suggest sculpted relief; while the cartellino on the lower edge of each fresco evokes chiselled lettering in stone; and the painted grey frame around each scene heightens the overall three-dimensional effect.⁵

Note on Provenance
The frescoes have enjoyed a remarkable history and have passed through the hands of some of Europe’s wealthiest and most discerning collectors. Their original home, Palazzo Porto, was commissioned from Andrea Palladio by Iseppo da Porto in 1554, shortly after marrying Livia Thiene, both of whom are immortalised with their children in the celebrated portraits by Veronese (figs 5 and 6).

Painted in 1760, the frescoes were removed from the palazzo in about 1900, along with Giambattista's aforementioned Apotheosis of Orazio da Porto, when they were acquired by the Berlin industrialist and collector Eduard Simon (1864–1929). They had been recommended to him by the curator and art historian Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929), who would shortly thereafter found the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now named the Bode Museum in his honour.

By 1903 the detached frescoes were hanging in Simon’s house in 7 Victoriastraβe in Berlin, which had been built shortly before by the renowned architect Alfred Messel (1853–1909). The dining room was specially designed to fit the frescoes and the plans were meticulously studied before building was allowed to commence (figs 7 and 8). Their next owner, the Swedish entrepreneur Axel Wenner-Gren (1881–1961), one of the richest men in the world at the time, took the works to Paris and then Stockholm, before they were sold to the Hallsborough Gallery in London. It was there that Dr Gustav Rau, the German industrialist and collector, acquired them, later selling them to benefit UNICEF.

¹ 61.170; fresco, transferred to canvas, 508 x 228.6 cm.; the subject has also been interpreted as The Triumph of Valour over Time. Gemin and Pedrocco 1993, p. 476, no. 501, reproduced p. 477. The museum also houses a very fine bozzetto for the design; Gemin and Pedrocco 1993, p. 476, no. 501a, reproduced p. 477.
² For the three works by Tiepolo (one octagonal and two of square format), see Pallucchini 1968, pp. 127–28, no. 261 C; for Veronese’s allegories see T. Pignatti and F. Pedrocco, Veronese, Milan 1995, vol. I, pp. 59–61, nos 31 and 32, reproduced.
³ Vigni lists a drawing of the composition for Jacopo, the first of the scenes, as by Giambattista in preparation for Giandomenico’s execution. The drawing is inscribed: Giacomo [sic]; see Vigni 1942.
⁴ Mariuz 1971, pp. 136–37, reproduced figs 179–82. Two allegories with gold backgrounds are also known to have been painted by Giambattista and are today in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; see B. Aikema (ed.), Italian Paintings from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Dutch Public Collections, Florence 1997, pp. 159–60, nos 182–83, both reproduced.
⁵ Each inscribed as follows: 1) IACOBVS DE PORTO CO: ET EQVES/ MORVM INTEGRITATE, DOCTRINA, CONSILIO/ CLARISSIMVS VICENTIÆ PRÆFCTVS [sic]/ PRO HENRICO . II . REGE, ET IMPERATORE A . S . MXXII; 2) DONATVS DE PORTO COMES ET EQVES CVM NAVIBUS/ MILITE, PECVNIA REM VENETAM/ CLODIANO BELLO JUVISSET S.C. INTER VENETOS/ PATRICIOS COOPTATVS ANo S. MCCCLXXIX; 3) GRAVISSIMO AB VNIVERSA EVROPA BELLO/ PRESSA REP. VENETA HIERONYMVS DE PORTO CO: ET EQVES/ S.C. VNIVERSO PRÆFECTVS EST PEDEMONTIO/ A.S. MDVII; 4) FRANCISCVS DE PORTO CO: ET EQVES PACE ET BELLO DOMI, FORISQVE/ REBVS PRÆCLARE GESTIS REIP · VEN · COLLATERALIS GENERALIS/ A · S · MDLIV; 5) HIPPOLYTVS DE PORTO CO: ET EQVES IOANE FEDERICO SAXONIÆ DVCE/ DEVICTO, ET CAPTO A CAROLO V. IMPERATORE SVMIS HONORIBVS/ CVMVIATVR MOXQVE REMP. VENET. A TVRCARVM ARMIS STRENVE/ DEFENDENS CORCYRÆ DECEDIT. A.S. MDLXXII; 6) IOANNES B[A]PTISTA DE PORTO CO: ET EQVES DIFICILLIMIS/ TEMPORIBVS CRETÆ, PALMÆ, MANTVÆ A VENETA REPV./ PRÆFICITVR AC SVPREMVS MILITVM MAGISTER CREATVR/ A.S. MDLXI