Giovanni Battista Mengardi

He then became a member of the "Brotherhood of Painters", in Padua, where he created his first major work; decorations in the Episcopal chapel, to mark the beatification of Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo (1761).

That year, after painting some frescoes at the Palazzo Maldura, he left to live in Venice, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts.

His initial project there involved paintings for the Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo [it] in Campagna Lupia.

Two years later, he was appointed an inspector for the Council of Ten, succeeding the late Antonio Maria Zanetti, and was charged with maintaining a census of pictorial works on public display.

In 1787, he decorated the ceilings in four rooms at the Palazzo Priuli in Cannaregio with mythological subjects, including Athena contending with Poseidon over the possession of Attica.