[8] A member of the House of Zulian,[9] he is best known for his leading art collection and for being one of the earliest patrons of Canova, a great friend of his,[1][10] from whom he commissioned the Theseus and the Minotaur in 1781, while serving as ambassador to Rome.

[6] He was born into an influential old[11] Venetian noble family,[9] which built the Palazzo Zulian on Venice's Canal Grande in the 17th century.

[1] Zulian took Canova under his patronage and protection, and significantly helped him in Rome, welcoming him as his guest and allowing him to turn some rooms of his palace into his studio.

Zulian also commissioned a bust of Torquato Tasso from Giuseppe Angelini during his embassy in Rome, which he donated to his friend Pierantonio Serassi.

[1] Zulian, following the advice of Canova, transferred a well-known sculpture, the Mezzo piede di un Colosso, to Venice a few years before 1785.

[17][10] When he was elected bailo and was shipping out to Costantinople, Zulian was followed by Alberto Fortis, a prominent naturalist, the Neapolitan botanist Domenico Cirillo, and the French scholar Jean Baptiste LeChevalier.

"[1] It was during one of these excursions that he collected the well-known Cammeo Zulian, an Hellenistic-era intaglio of Giove Egioco, today in the Venice National Archaeological Museum.

[1] Even before coming back from Costantinople, Zulian was already planning to restore the house of the poet Petrarch in Arquà, although the project didn't materialize.

[1][9] Zulian, a man of fine taste and knowledgeable in the arts, put together a valuable collection of artworks, which he kept in Padua, his habitual city of residence.