The Three Philosophers" by Giorgione (ca. 1477-1510) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and "St. Francis in the Desert" by Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1424 / 35-1516) in The Frick Collection are two of the most celebrated paintings of the Venetian Renaissance. Documentation suggests that between at least 1525 and 1556 the two paintings were displayed in the same house in Venice, the palazzo of Taddeo Contarini (ca. 1466-1540), a member of one of Venice's wealthiest patrician families. For the first time in more than four hundred years, these two masterpieces will be reunited in the exhibition at the Frick that this publication accompanies. This book explores the origins of the paintings and re-evaluates their histories in the collection of Taddeo Contarini"--