He was
lieutenant of the Guardia Civica during the
1848–1849 revolutions, a member of the Comitato Segreto di Venezia at the time of the Italian
Risorgimento against the
Austrian Empire, working in connection with the municipal council not recognized by Austria. When it assumed power, he was called to be part of it.[13]
He often collaborated with his brother
Tommaso Meduna (1798–1880), engineer and designer of the first railway bridge between Venice and the mainland in 1836.[14][15]
His first son Leopoldo was born in 1837. He was a student at Venice high school and knight of the
Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus. He died on 8 September 1855 at the age of eighteen.[16][17]
Leopoldo's younger brother Cesare was born on 27 October 1841, and resided in Campo
San Vidal, Venice. As a student in
Padua, where he obtained a degree in
engineering, Cesare Meduna, like his father, was also part of the Comitato Segreto. After serving in municipal positions in Zelarino he briefly became the
mayor after the death of Ugo Paccagnella in 1905, until his own passing a few months later in 1906, when he was replaced by Paccagnella' son Alberto.[18][19]
Meduna is buried at the
San Michele Cemetery along with his wife Maria Viola (1805–1866) and their two sons Leopoldo (1837–1855) and Cesare Meduna (1841–1906), ending this particular lineage.
Architectural works
Meduna's work focused particularly on reconstruction and restoration works during the period between the
Congress of Vienna (1815) and Venice's incorporation into the
Kingdom of Italy (1866), when the city developed its modern urban structure – a period marked by a crisis of identity and an architectural enthusiasm for the past, albeit with little sense of the modern discipline of
conservation.
Detailed plans with eight great arterial streets proposed to the Commissione per lo studio di un piano di riforma delle vie e canali di Venezia, as one of the commission's nine members (1866)
Design of the Bacino Orseolo (with Federico Berchet, 1869)
While Meduna won the praise of notable architects such as
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc,[23] he was also criticized for a heavy-handed approach to reconstructive
neo-Gothic modernization rather than restorative conservation. His invasive restoration of St Mark's Basilica fuelled controversy and debate, and in the case of the early 15th-century Ca' d'Oro, his damaging transformation even led to imprisonment on charges of
vandalism.[24][25]
Meduna himself commented on the restoration (demolition) of his own house at San Fantin (1846) as follows:[23]
Even though some might now feel the stirrings of warm affection for genuine things, and attempt to conserve the original parts of ancient buildings in renovating them, nonetheless a great many were destroyed, including some of considerable merit, so that hardly any trace remains of that Architecture which might almost be called national, and which was certainly quite widespread. Even in the old house at San Fantin which I demolished there were old windows in the Gothic style, and I have found many more like them. Which is what made me decide to adopt that Architecture in the construction of a façade.
^Mezzanotte, Paolo.
"MEDUNA, Giovanni Battista". Treccani: Enciclopedia Italiana (1934) (in Italian).
Archived from the original on 2023-01-15. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
^Monicelli, Francesco; Montagner, Sonia (2000). Guida alle Ville Venete (in Italian). Colognola ai Colli: Demetra.