The story
In a small side chapel of the cathedral of Castelfranco Veneto, a Madonna sits on a throne raised high above two saints standing on a tiled floor. At the foot of the throne the painter put a tomb bearing the Costanzo family arms, three pairs of ribs. Giorgione, the painter born in this town, made the altarpiece around 1503 for the condottiero Tuzio Costanzo, whose son Matteo had died of fever in 1499 while serving Venice. The armoured saint on the left, now read as Saint Nicasius, carries the banner of the Knights Hospitaller, the order Matteo belonged to, and some scholars see the dead son's own features in him. Saint Francis stands on the other side.
The building around it is younger than the picture. The old Romanesque church that held the Costanzo chapel was pulled down, and in the 18th century the architect Francesco Maria Preti built the present cathedral, borrowing its forms from Palladio's Redentore church in Venice. The altarpiece moved into a chapel of the new church, with Matteo's tomb beneath it.
On 10 December 1972 the panel was stolen from the cathedral and later recovered. It was restored in Venice in 2002 and 2003, travelled to an exhibition, and came home in December 2005. Before you leave, look into the sacristy, which preserves fragments of frescoes the young Paolo Veronese painted in 1551 for Villa Soranzo, a nearby country house that was later demolished.
