Abstract

Jaspers have been used for their beauty and relative abundance in the Mediterranean area since Antiquity. In the Late Middle Age their use continued, especially for religious and precious objects. However, it was during the Renaissance and Baroque periods that jaspers started to be used more frequently all over Italy for decorating important altars and church tabernacles, and for the manufacture of prestigious table-tops, especially in Rome and Florence. After mentioning the use of jaspers in Venetian goldsmith’s workshops of the XIII and XIV centuries, this paper deals with the discovery of Sicilian and oriental jaspers in several monuments of the Renaissance and Baroque Venice, such as the main portal of the Scuola di San Rocco and the interiors of Saint Mark’s and Santa Maria della Salute’s basilicas, the churches of San Salvador, Santa Maria del Carmelo and San Rocco