Sartorio Tomb

This funerary monument - a unique example in the Trieste cemetery – holds a valuable, antique Carrara marble sculpture depicting ‘Veiled Religion’, the 1786 work of Giuseppe Sanmartino, creator of the well-known Veiled Christ in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, who in this work displays his style marked by grace, spirituality and freshness. Religion, draped and veiled, stands on a plinth, adorned with a bas-relief of The Works of Mercy. The left hand holds a log cross, resting on the book of the Gospels, while the right hand held (until 1995) the flaming heart of Charity. The left foot tramples the mask of hypocrisy, the papers of false doctrines and the serpents of vice and lets slip next to the right one a curly-haired and blindfolded putto (which also disappeared in 1995), depicting Profane Love.
The work comes from the chapel commissioned by Pietro Regine in Forio d'Ischia, which was plundered in the second half of the 19th century and then demolished, and a terracotta draft is preserved in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia in Rome.
The tomb was granted in 1864 to Baron Pietro Sartorio (Trieste 1796-1890), a wealthy entrepreneur in the Trieste high society, benefactor, art lover and collector, who lived with his wife Giuseppina Fontana in the villa that became the Sartorio Museum.
He was responsible for the purchase and transport of this masterpiece of late Neapolitan Baroque sculpture to Trieste at an unspecified date between 1870 and 1886.
The tomb was restored in 2020-2021 by Trieste City Council with a contribution from the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Trieste.