# Padua turns its attention to three Tiepolos Canonical article: https://arthistory.news/news/padua-turns-its-attention-to-three-tiepolos-8f7f5b76-5ec1-454c-a63c-c96bdb94e580 By ArtHistory.News Published: 2026-11-05T07:19:36.974Z Three altarpieces painted by Giambattista Tiepolo for a parish church in Padua are the subject of a restoration campaign that will allow the public to follow their treatment. Dating from around 1745, the paintings belong to a single commission for San Massimo, now the university chapel, and offer an opportunity to reconsider the ambitions of the priest who brought one of Venice’s most celebrated painters to his church. That priest was Giuseppe Cogolo, who commissioned Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, Saints Maximus and Oswald and Rest of the Holy Family during the Flight into Egypt. Two remain at San Massimo; the Rest, now held at the Diocesan Museum, is due to be the first to enter the conservation studio. Their shared history gives the project a particular coherence: these are paintings conceived for the same place and patron, whose relationship can easily become obscured when they are encountered separately. Following a presentation scheduled for 4 November at Padua’s Collegio Sacro, the Rest is expected to travel this week to Egidio Arlango’s workshop in Vicenza. Its treatment, overseen in conjunction with the regional heritage authorities, is due to finish in March 2027. The work will be documented for the public as it progresses. Arlango is working alongside Andrea Nante, director of the Diocesan Museum, and the Tiepolo specialist Andrea Tomezzoli of the University of Padua. The university’s Department of Cultural Heritage and its interdisciplinary conservation research centre, CIBA, will provide scientific support. Close examination should offer a fuller understanding of the canvases’ condition and working history, although no technical discoveries have yet been announced. The campaign forms part of Mi sta a cuore, the diocesan programme established in 2013 to draw local communities into the care of works in their churches. Its fifth edition was announced in March, on the 330th anniversary of Tiepolo’s birth; November marks the move towards treatment. Alongside fundraising, the programme gives visitors access to the processes and decisions that usually take place behind a conservator’s door. There is a pleasing connection between this project and another recent restoration in the city. Proceeds from visits to the newly restored fifteenth-century chapel of San Massimo inside the Bishop’s Palace will help pay for the Tiepolos. This is a different building from the church for which the canvases were painted, but the shared dedication has supplied a practical link: visitors coming to see one recovered interior will contribute to the care of another part of Padua’s artistic inheritance. Sunday visits continue through November. For the three altarpieces, the coming months promise sustained attention to objects that have long belonged to the city. They also bring Cogolo’s commission back into focus. Whatever conservation reveals about Tiepolo’s handling of paint, the decision of a parish priest to secure three works from him is itself worth remembering. ## Illustrations The campaign forms part of Mi sta a cuore, the diocesan programme established in 2013 to draw local communities into the care of works in their churches. [Image source](). ## Sources - [ArtHistory.News editor: ArtHistory.News editor]() ## Related records - [Giambattista Tiepolo]() Please cite the canonical article URL above. Image credits and reproduction rights remain with their respective holders.