St. Paul in Lavanttal Abbey, Austria, is proposing an exhibition on the “History of Beauty”: a Sofonisbe, presented
as by Franz Josef Spiegler, is attributed here, with his pendant, to Antonio Pellegrini. The author connects the
new works with other versions of the same theme by the Venetian painter (Pommersfelden, Schleissheim).
Another painting by another old Venetian master, Mattia Bortoloni, is discovered in Villa Valmarana ai Nani,
Vicenza. It decorated the altar of he oratory of the nearby ‘Rotonda’ (Villa Almerico-Capra); his patron was
the Marquis Mario Capra. Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi’s Forestiere istruito (1761) doesn’t quote this work, mentioning
instead the frescoes in Villa Valmarana ai Nani, painted four years before by Giambattista Tiepolo
and Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna.
