Francesco Guardi Venice 1712 - 1793

K.T. Parker and J. Byam Shaw, Canaletto e Guardi, exhibition catalogue, Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 1962, p. 69, under cat. no. 95;
Antonio Morassi, Guardi, 2 vols., Venice 1973, vol. I p. 185, and under note to catalogue no. 264;
idem, Guardi, Tutti I Disegni, Venice 1975, cat. 272, reproduced fig. 273

This is a preparatory study for Guardi's painting The Visit of Pope Puis VI to Venice: Te Deum in the Church of S. Zanipolo, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (see Morassi, op. cit., 1973, cat. no. 264, reproduced vol. II, figs. 293 and 297).  Another study of the inside of the church, connected with the same painting, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (inv. no. D1740-1885; see Morassi, op. cit., 1975, cat. no. 271, fig. 275).  The same interior is known also from another painted version, with differences in the figures (private collection, Paris; see Morassi, op.cit., 1973, cat. no. 265, reproduced vol. II, fig. 294).

While the more meticulous drawing now in the Victoria & Albert Museum concentrates only on the description of the elaborate gothic architecture, the present sheet is a quick, lively sketch of the interior, capturing the atmosphere, the numerous figures, and also the macchina for the orchestra, visible to the left of the transept. The scene depicted is the last day of the Pope's visit to Venice, 19 May 1782. The Pope, who was returning from an important diplomatic mission in Vienna, stopped in Venice for four days. The Republic of Venice, through Pietro Edwards, commissioned Francesco Guardi to record the most important events of this visit in four paintings; one of those canvases is the picture now in Cleveland, for which the present drawing is a study.