ABSTRACT
During the course of the seventeenth century, the restoration of the paintings in the public palaces of Rialto consisted still, in the case of paintings which were too far gone, in their replacement: in the Biblioteca Marciana, the tondos by Bernardo Strozzi and Padovanino replaced those by Battista Franco and Zelotti; in the Sala dello Scrutinio, at the end of the century, four canvases by Palma Giovane, Benedetto Caliari, Francesco Bassano and Domenico Tintoretto had been replaced. Edwards himself, in the case of paintings which were too damaged, excluded them from his reports, as their restoration would have involved a complete repainting: in such cases, he suggested replacing the paintings with new ones.1
