Dorsoduro
 

Angelo Raffaele
I Carmini Santa Maria del Carmelo
Le Eremite La Romite
Gesuati Santa Maria del Rosario
Ognissanti
Salute
San Barnaba
San Gregorio
San Nicolò dei Mendicoli
San Pantalon
San Sebastiano
San Trovaso
San Vio
Sant’Agnese
Santa Margherita
Santa Maria della Carita (Accademia)
Santa Maria della Visitazione
San Gerolamo dei Gesuati
Santa Marta
Santa Teresa Le Terese
Spirito Santo

non-catholic
Saint George's (Anglican)

Angelo Raffaele
Francesco Contino 1618-1639
 

The 'Miss Garnet's Angel' church.


History
Tradition has it that this church, dedicated to the Archangel Raphael, is one of the oldest in Venice, supposedly having been founded in 640. The story goes that when Attila attcked Italy for the second time Genusio, Lord of Padua, sent his family to the island of Rialto. When his wife, Adriana, arrived in Dorsoduro she vowed to build a church if her husband retuned safely. She built an oratory where the Bendictine nuns from San Zaccaria, whom she had befriended, could visit and worship. Adriana left the oratory to the nuns, whop kept it up until it was destroyed by a fire which swept the whole district in 899. The church was rebuilt by the Candini and Ariana families. It became a parish church, which was destroyed by fire in 1105. The first written record dates from 1193, the year in which the church was rebuilt and reconsecrated following the fire. This church was itself demolished in the 17th Century being considered to be beyond repair.

The Church
The current church was built in 1618 to designs by Francesco Contino. The façade, facing onto a narrow canal, was rebuilt in 1735, with its statue group of Tobias, Raphael, the dog and the fish (left) dating from this time too, and said to be by Sebastiano da Lugana.
The restoration of the façade in 2004 left it looking like new but lacking, some complained, that certain crumbling charm and the aged look that it possessed before (right). But the pristine look didn't last, of course, this being Venice. This is one of only two churches in Venice that are free standing - you can walk all around it.

Interior
The original Greek cross interior was reworked in the 18th Century.

Art highlights
The organ over the entrance (built 1743-49 by Antonio and Tommaso Amigoni) has a balcony divided into five sections, each featuring paintings of the life of Tobias by Giovanni Antonio Guardi, brother of the more famous veduti-painter Francesco, in 1750-53.

The baptistery (entrance to the right of the high altar) is a tiny low room, the whole ceiling of which is covered with a fresco by Francesco Fontebasso, a pupil of Ricci and Tiepolo. It's been much altered, but recent cleaning has left it bright and glowing.

Campanile 35m (114 ft) electromechanical bells
Rebuilt with the 18th Century's favoured form of the octagonal drum and onion dome.

Literature
This church is central to the action in Salley Vickers' novel Miss Garnet's Angel and so it has become something of a pilgrimage destination for readers of that book. This probably explains the much better chance that you'll find it open lately and its recent spate of sprucings-up. So who are we to quibble.

Opening times
Monday to Saturday 8.00-12.00, 3.00-5.00
Sunday 9.00-12 .00

Vaporetto San Basilio
 

The church
The brick façade facing the square and the canal is early Venetian Renaissance and influenced by the work of Codussi. The façade is probably by Sebastiano Mariano di Lugano, as are the statues, probably. The statues are, from the top, the redeemer, the annunciation and the prophets Elijia and Elisha. The last two are considered the founders of the Carmelite order. The side entrance on Calle de la Scuola (see below left) is the original 14th Century façade and features Byzantine palm-leaf detailing - it was restored in 2006 by Venice in Peril.

Interior
Dates from the original 14th Century Gothic building, but most of the decoration is later. Vast but lacking a transept, it's somewhat dark and baroque in effect due to the 17th Century art and the gilded woodwork. Some especially fine confectionary stucco work on the altar with a frescoed ceiling depicting Two angels in flight by Sebastiano Ricci. The sacristy you shouldn't miss, for its 15th Century fresco fragments. But as this is what you might politely call a working sacristy you might have to tune out the business going on like, in my case, the conversation of the priest and the disreputable-looking man replenishing the candles, and also ignore the presence of the floor cleaning equipment.

Cloisters
The cloister of the former monastery (see below), which was rebuilt in the mid-17th Century and suppressed in 1810, has an entrance to the right of the façade and can be visited, despite the fact that it looks like you can't. The wellhead in the centre is dated 1762 and has the Carmelite crest. The presence of assorted bits of old board and some shouting youths (cunningly excluded from the photo) made for a certain lack of atmosphere on my visit.

Campanile 66m (217 ft) electromechanical bells
The 1290 original is visible on Barbari map. It was damaged by earthquakes in 1347, 1410 and 1511. Demolished 1511 and rebuilt taller in 1520. This one began to lean as the foundations subsided and was straightened in 1688 by Giuseppe Sardi. The method by which he achieved the straightening involved digging away at the brickwork on the three sides away from the tilt and wedging wood into the holes. He then dissolved the wood away with strong acid and the tower tilted back. At this time the campanile was also topped by a small octagonal temple with a bronze statue of the Madonna of Mount Carmel. The current statue is actually a copy sculpted in 1982 by Romano Vio after the original was struck by lightning. When the lightning struck the campanile, in 1756, the monks ringing the bells at the time were so terrified they fled in panic and one of them hit his head against a wall and died.

The church in art
Santa Maria del Carmelo and Scuola Grande dei Carmini, a typically cropped oil painting by John Singer Sargent (below left) shows the façade stuccoed over.

Sickert's The Church of the Carmine is from a viewpoint just a little to the left of mine for the photo above, and merely trims off the top of the façade.

Opening times 12.30-7.00

Vaporetto Ca' Rezzonico or San Basilio

History
Built in 1693-94 by Giovanni Battista Lambranzini (who was also responsible for the nearby Santa Margherita (see below) for Augustinian nuns, and paid for by Santo Donadoni. It's also said that the six nuns who inhabited the hermit's cell (eremite means hermit) above the door of San Marcuola moved here when that church became unstable in 1693.

Suppressed in 1810, at which time 38 nuns were resident. The Cavanis moved here from Spirito Santo in 1811. Canossian nuns moved in in 1863. The complex has been used as a teacher training college, by various schools, for language teaching, and as student and tourist accomodation.

Restored in late 90s by Venice in Peril as the church had suffered severely from damp. Work described as 'stabilising and consolidating the altars'. Also at this time the Fondation Jean-Barthélémy, and others, paid for the restoration of paintings in the church in memory of the painter Marie Thérèse Krafft, who lived nearby. This restoration work, on four wall paintings by Francesco Pittoni depicting The Miracles of St Augustine, was completed in 2002.

Interior
An aisleless nave with an enclosed choir behind the altar for the nuns. Ceiling painting The Crowning of the Virgin attributed to 'school of Balestra'. 15th Century wooden choir stalls with gilt and polychrome carving of Our Lady of Mercy.

Campanile 13m (42ft) no bells
Has an eight-sided budino- (or pudding-) shaped dome.

Vaporetto San Basilio

Opening times Closed.
Which after all that restoration work seemed something of a waste and a shame. But now (Summer 2009) it seems that there's more restoration going on (see right). The work started in September 2008 and is due to last 240 days. And then?
 
website

Photo by Brigitte Eckert
 

History
Monks from Sienna from the order of The Blessed Giovanni Colombino established themselves here in 1392. In 1423 they built an oratory and cloister dedicated to Saint Jerome.  (They had previously occupied the nearby church of Sant’Agnese.) A proper church and monastery were built here by the Poor Gesuati order (as they now called themselves) from 1494, consecrated 1524 and dedicated to Our Lady of the Visitation. The order was suppressed in 1668 and in 1669 the Dominicans bought the place and got Giorgio Massari to build the present, much larger, church, beginning work in 1726, nest to the site of the old church, and finishing in 1743. The church became a parish church when the order was suppressed in 1815. The monastery to the left of the church, which had become a boys' home after suppression, is now the home of the Istituto Don Orione.

The church
The niches on the façade (a more theatrical reflection of the façade of the Redentore church opposite) contain large statues depicting the four virtues. The interior is an aisleless nave with six connecting side chapels full of exceptional 18th Century art. A stone relief of the dead Christ supported by two Angels set into the side wall of the church (seen to the right in the photo right) may be from the original, suppressed, church.

Art highlights
A couple of Piazettas, one by Sebastiano Ricci, ceiling paintings by Tiepolo and a badly restored Tintoretto Crucifixion which came from the nearby Santa Maria della Visitazione, part of the same complex.

A visit
Aisleless, with three chapels either side of the nave linked by a corridor. The effect of the walls and detailing is pale grey, getting darker for the domed chancel, with it's unplain tabernacle by Massari. This church is a good one for Tiepolo fans, with a fine altarpiece in the first chapel on the right and some ceiling painting well worth the neck ache, or the easier perusal using the handily provided (and correctly shaped) floor-standing mirror.

Campanile 21m (68 ft) electromechanical bells
Also by Massari, with a matching parallel tower.

The church in art
Dominates right foreground of The Giudecca Canal with the Zattere by Guardi.

Santa Maria del Rosario, known as Chiesa dei Gesuati, by Rubens Santoro (below) with bizarre truncation of the church and the wrong campanile.

The Giudecca by David Roberts (detail further below).

Also many watercolours by John Singer Sargent.

Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 10.00 to 5.00
Sundays: closed
A Chorus Church

Vaporetto Zattere

























 

History
Founded in 1472 by Cistercian nuns, with a convent and a hospice attached. The church was rebuilt bigger from 1505 to 1580 and consecrated in 1586. It was suppressed by the French in 1806 and stripped of its art. But in 1810 the complex was reopened to house Capuchine nuns from the convent of Santa Margherita in Torcello who had moved here because it was a more salubrious location. They brought their own paintings with them, the only famous name amongst them being Palma il Giovane. The convent became an old people's home in the 19th Century and is now a hospital.

Lost art
Veronese's Coronation of the Virgin, from the high altar here, now in the Accademia.

A visit in 2007
If you find this church open you'll find a small and plain and very used convent church with a nun's gallery. It has even more crumble than usual and no great art, apart from that by locals and kids all pinned about. When I visited there was also a puzzling sheet of hand-written text by which donations were sought, which was in Italian and not easily understood, except that it did mention both Jesus Christ and Elvis Presley. The latter, maybe, being an indication of the type of life of sin which the writer had renounced by embracing the former.

A visit in 2009
When I'd visited before had not taken to this church. but this time, with more time, and with the church deserted but for a monk reading a newspaper, I liked it much more. It's still a crumbly and used-seeming church - aisleless with a ceiling divided into compartments where small paintings might be, but aren't. There's a big nun's gallery at the back and two wall-attached altars each side. The apse and two side chapels have frescoed ceilings, and for these alone I'd recommend a visit.

Campanile 40m (130ft) manual bells

Opening times pretty rare

Vaporetto San Basilio
 

Photo by Brigitte Eckert
 

History
Built in the first two decade of the 20th Century. Converted from a warehouse previously belonging to the Venezia-Murano Glass company and bought by Sir Henry Layard. He donated it to a committee which had been set up to establish a permanent English Church in Venice. The church opened in 1892, built to a design by engineer Luigi Marangoni, with sculptures by Napoleone Martinuzzi. Contains the tombstone of Consul Joseph Smith, which was taken from the Protestant burial ground on the Lido, where he was buried, in 1968. There's also a window commemorating Robert Browning who allowed Anglican services to be held in the Ca’ Rezzonico during the time he lived there. It is one of seven stained-glass windows recently restored with the help of Venice in Peril.

Vaporetto Accademia

The church that launched a thousand films.
 

History
The original monastery and church on this site, dedicated to The Holy Trinity, was given by Venice to the Teutonic Knights in 1256 in gratitude for their help in the war against Genoa. Suppression by Pope Clement XVI followed in 1592 and the complex was given to the patriarchate of Venice.

The complex was demolished in order that this church be built to hasten and celebrate the end of the last great plague of 1630-31 which took 30% of Venice’s population - Santa Maria della Salute means St Mary of Health. The site was prestigious and a competition was held, among the conditions of which being that the church be flashy but not too expensive. The twenty-six year old Longhena’s winning design took a Palladian base and made something freshly baroque and theatrical. The dome with its crowds of angels and its famous huge volutes cannot be said to make a small impression. And it needed to be impressive, as it formed the centrepiece of the grand annual ceremony where the doge crossed the canal on a specially-built bridge of barges and processed through the central arch to give thanks for Venice’s deliverance. The ceremony continues to this day, without a doge, but with crowds buying sweets and candles and streaming across the rickety structure. In the 1930s it did collapse, with Sir Osbert Sitwell on it. The church long symbolised Venice’s triumph over adversity and its republican strength, just as its silhouette now symbolises Venice in almost every film and TV programme that gets made about the city.

The church
An extravagant display, made up of eight Palladian façades, with the grandest facing onto the Grand Canal Huge. Buttresses with orecchioni (big ears) support the drum of the dome and lots of statues of saints and angels. The lantern on top of the dome supports a statue of the Virgin blessing the city. Behind there's the smaller dome over the sanctuary and two delicate campanili.

Interior
The interior is impressive but unsurprising, given the external appearance – a quite plain octagonal space with an ambulatory and six radiating chapels. I recently read that the paving is inlaid with 33 roses symbolising the 33 years of Jesus's life, but I've not been able to check this fact.

Art highlights
Works by Titian (including the Pentacost which, like all the works by him in this church, was taken from the deconsecrated church of Santo Spirito in Isola) and Tintoretto, amongst others, and a Byzantine icon of The Virgin set into the somewhat overpopulated altar.

Campanile 48m (156ft) electromechanical bells
Two towers, but only one has bells.

Edwardian suicides
In 1908 jean Cocteau wrote a poem called Souvenir d'un soir d'automne au jardin Eaden, which tells of an argument between Cocteau's companion on his trip to Venice and a young American. The quarrel, which took place in the Garden of Eden, lead to the friend's shooting himself on the steps of the Salute, which was a not-unusual event at the time, it seems. Francois Mauriac, writing in Le Mal many years later, mentions this event and says of the steps of the Salute: One cannot even count all the young men who have chosen to die there!

Ruskin said
One of the earliest buildings of the Grotesque Renaissance, rendered impressive by its position, size, and general proportions. These latter are exceedingly good; the grace of the whole building being chiefly dependent on the inequality of size in its cupolas, and pretty grouping of the two campaniles behind them. It is to be generally observed that the proportions of buildings have nothing whatever to do with the style of general merits of their architecture. An architect trained in the worst schools, and utterly devoid of all meaning or purpose in his work may yet have such natural gift of massing and grouping as will render all his structures effective when seen from a distance: such a gift is very general with the late Italian builders, so that many of the most contemptible edifices in the country have good stage effect so long as we do not approach them. The Church of the Salute is farther assisted by the beautiful flight of steps in front to fit down to the canal; and its façade is rich and beautiful of its kind, and was chosen by Turner for the principal object in this well-known view of the Grand Canal. The principal faults of the building are the meagre windows in the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the buttresses under the form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses themselves being originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated by Lazari to be of timber, and therefore needs none. The sacristy contains several precious pictures: the three on its roof by Titian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as they are monstrous; but the small Titian, "St. Mark, with Sts. Cosmo and Damian," was, when I first saw it, to my judgment, by far the first work of Titian's in Venice. It has since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me entirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine it carefully.

The church in art
Amongst the many views are the usuals - Canaletto, Guardi, Marieschi - but perhaps the most famous are Sickert's and Sargent's. They both had a thing for cropped views.

Film and TV
Used extensively in establishing shots that say Look - it's Venice! Amongst the most memorable scenes are the threesome having a picnic on the steps in The Wings of a Dove and the dome appearing mysteriously over Katherine Hepburn's shoulder as she chooses shoes in Summertime. (I say 'mysteriously' because there are no shops anywhere near the church.)

Opening times
Daily 9.00-12.00, 3.00-5.00

Vaporetto Salute

San Barnaba
Lorenzo Boschetti 1749-76
 

San Gregorio
Antonio di Cremona  15th Century
 

From Jacopo de'Barbari's map of 1500,
showing the back of the church to the right
and the cloister behind.

 

History
Founded in 806 and given to Benedictine monks in 989 who founded an abbey here in 1160. The current church dates from the mid-15th Century and is by Antonio di Cremona. It's closely modelled on the nearby church of the Carità with its three-part Gothic façade and has a triple-apse (see below left) facing onto a canal at the rear. Built into the façade of the canonica to the right is an arch from a 14th Century funerary monument, visible in the film still below.
The skin of Marcantonio Bragadin, flayed alive by the Turks in 1571, was kept here before being moved to San Zanipolo in 1596.

Suppressed by the French in 1806 and turned into a workshop for the Zecca (the Mint). It fell into a sad state of  disrepair in the mid-20th Century and plans were made to make it into a concert hall. It's now home to furniture (and/or art) restorers.

Cloister
Adjoining, with an entrance (attributed to Bartolomeo Bon) facing the Grand Canal. It's all that remains of the abbey,  which had two cloisters until one was demolished in the late 19th Century.

Ruskin said
An important church of the fourteenth century, not desecrated, but still interesting. Its apse is on the little canal crossing from the Grand Canal to the Giudecca, beside the Church of the Salute, and is very characteristic of the rude ecclesiastical Gothic contemporary with the Ducal Palace. The entrance to its cloisters, from the Grand Canal, is somewhat later; a noble square door, with two windows on each side of it, the grandest examples in Venice of the late window of the fourth order.
The cloister, to which this door gives entrance, is exactly contemporary with the finest work of the Ducal Palace, circa 1350. It is the loveliest cortile I know in Venice; its capitals consummate in design and execution; and the low wall on which they stand showing remnants of sculpture unique, as far as I know, in such application.


The church in film
The church and the campo in front of the entrance features in Who saw her die? (see below).
 

Opening times Now used as a restorer's workshop.

Vaporetto Salute

San Nicolo dei Mendicoli
12th-16th Centuries
 

History
This area is thought to be one of the first parts of Venice to be settled, being so close to the mainland, and tradition says that the first church here was built in the 7th century by Paduans fleeing the Langobards. (Although some books say that this building may have been a military structure.) Recent restoration work found the foundations of this earlier church, which was dedicated to St Lawrence, and discovered that it became a Greek-cross shaped in the 8th Century. Fire destroyed this church in 1105 and the current church was built. In the late 12th Century it was dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra. The name 'dei Mendicoli' means 'of the Beggars', reflecting the area's long history as home to Venice's working classes, traditionally fishermen and their families. The church was restored in 1361-4 and remodelled in 1553-80. The last major changes were made in 1750-60 when the new Istrian stone entrance façade was created. A priest was imprisoned for not being able to say where the money for the 18th Century rebuilding came from. It was said that a hoard of Roman gold and silver coins had been found under the campanile. This story also helps add weight to the one about the church being built on the site of an ancient temple. Venice in Peril carried out major restoration work from 1972-80, including re-roofing, damp-proofing, work on paintings and crucifixes, and the raising of the floor, which was 30cm below canal level.

The church
The creation of the present Greek temple front façade (to the left of the photo above right) resulted in restoration work on the old 15th Century porch (to the right of the photo) which was once a common feature but now the only other one is at San Giacomo di Rialto. It was rebuilt in 1903 using bits of the 12th Century building. Poor and virtuous women were allowed to shelter and sleep here. The newer entrance has statues of the Virgin (centre) and Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint John of Nepomucene.

The interior
The 12th Century basilica plan is set off by two colonnades of columns with 14th Century capitals surmounted by rows of statues of the twelve apostles dating from the 16th Century. The paintings are mostly 17th Century. So it's even more of a mixture of periods and styles than usual, but a pleasing effect nonetheless, based upon numerical harmonies.

A visit
A nave with two aisles, with the three-arched screen between the nave and the apse (see right) here giving the impression of aisles on three sides. The three deep chapels in the right aisle make for a pleasing asymmetrical impression, and it's this spatial interest that appeals here, and the atmosphere generated by the darker upper parts. There's no big-name art here - even the Marieschi painting is labelled 'attrib' and there's a lot of 'anonime' works too. The varied and attractive frescoing on all of the chapel ceilings, though, is appealing. And do put a Euro in to illuminate the place - it cuts down on some of the shadowy atmosphere but makes it much easier to see what you're looking at.


Campanile 26m (85ft) manual bells
Dates from the 12th Century building. Damaged by a stray bomb in WWII. The clock was added in 1764. Also benefited from the  restoration work by Venice in peril in the 1970s.






Fresco upstairs
Crucifixion with saints from the 14th Century (photo right) recently discovered. See my fresco story

The church in film
This is the church that Donald Sutherland is restoring in Don’t Look Now.



Opening times
Mon-Sat 10.00-12.00, 4.00-6.00
Sunday 4.00-6.00

Vaporetto San Basilio

San Pantalon
Francesco Comino 1668-86
 

 
This detail from the Merian map of 1635 shows
the old San Pantalon side-on to the canal,
with Santa Margherita (left foreground) still with its campanile.

History
Tradition says that this church was founded in the 9th Century, but the earliest written record is dated 1101. It was dedicated to Saints Pantaleon and Giuliana, but became plain San Pantalon. The church was rebuilt, and reconsecrated in 1305. The Barbari map of 1500 shows its façade facing Rio de San Pantalon. Later a portico facing onto the campo was added. When it was rebuilt in 1668-86 by Francesco Comino (aka Antonio Comin?) the church's orientation was swivelled by 90 degrees so that the (still unfinished, looming brick) façade faced the campo. It is said that Comino plans for the façade had been inspired by the church of the Redentore and San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti.
San Pantaleon, a 13th Century doctor from Nicomedia, became famous in Venice in the 18th Century due to a play written by Goldoni.

Art highlights
Undoubtedly the highlight here is the very Baroque ceiling by Giovanni Antonio Fumiani, done between 1680 and 1704, depicting scenes from The Martyrdom and Glorification of St Pantaleon amongst looming illusionistic architectural perspectives. It's the largest oil painting in the world, measuring around 443 square feet and made up of 40 canvases sewn together. Ruskin found it vulgar, unsurprisingly. The artist is said to have fallen to his death from the scaffolding whilst painting, but this may just be a story. Before visiting I had been prepared somewhat by reading all of this but when I actually got in and under it...wow!  The big problem with this church is gloom, it has to be said - it's a dark church with very sparse lighting, but once your eyes acclimatise the ceiling reveals itself as something very special. The looming architecture and the hoards of characters...you'll swear that there are real people up there, so convincing are the protruding limbs. Some ceiling paintings impress merely with their scale, but this one is artistically impressive to match.

There's also a Veronese here (see left) The Miracle of San Pantalon which he began painting a year before he died and which is often said to have been his last work. It was restored by Venice in Peril for the Genius of Venice exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1983.  You'll have to put your €.50 in the slot for the light, though, or you'll see nothing, literally, thanks to the darkness and the reflections. If this church ever gets a clean and good lighting it'll blow people away.

There are also frescoes by Pietro Longhi.


Campanile 47m (153ft) manual bells
The original church's tower was restored 1225 and demolished in 1511 after an earthquake. Built  1704-32 and attributed to Giovanni Scalfarotto. It has a neo-classical belfry with a tall circular drum above and an elongated dome. To me it looks a lot like a vibrator, I'm sorry.

Opening times
Monday to Saturday:
4.00-6.00

Vaproretto Ca' Rezzonico


 

San Sebastiano
Antonio Scarpagnino 1508-48

The building of the current church and its monastery saw the church's façade switched from facing the Campazzo San Sebastiano (as seen in De Barbari's map of of 1500) to the current arrangement facing the canal. This work was carried out by Antonio Scarpagnino between 1508 and 1548. The church and the convent next door were suppressed in 1810 by Napoleon and the convent was partially demolished before being rebuilt in 1856. The building now houses the University of Venice's department of literature and philosophy.

The church
The façade is dominated by the two pairs of Corinthian columns on each level, which support a large tympanum with statues of Saint Jerome, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and, in the middle, Saint Sebastian. The interior is a monumental classical space, aisleless and simple, but overwhelming due to...

The art
As you go to the Madonna dell’Orto and the Scuola di San Rocco for Tintoretto and to San Giorgio degli Schiavoni for Carpaccio, so this church is Veronese central. This was his parish church, and tradition has it that he found refuge in the monastery after killing a love rival. He began decorating it at the age of 30, working here from 1555 to 1581. The ceiling shows scenes from the life of Esther and the walls show the life of Saint Sebastian. The trompe l'oeil painting here is almost unnerving in the way it blends so smoothly with the architecture, which had been finished only a few years before. You get the impression that the church was built specifically to house the trompe l'oeil vistas and the combination of art, sculpture and architecture is seamless. Veronese had trained as a stonecutter too and designed the altar. He died in 1588 and was buried here - his tombstone is in the floor near the organ.

Also some 'minor interventions' by Titian, Palma il Giovane, and an 18th Centrury painter called Federico Bencovich.

Lost art
Veronese's The Feast at the house of Simon, painted for the refectory here, looted by Napoleon and now in the Brera Gallery in Milan.

Campanile
Built between 4th March 1544 and 21st May 1546 (the plaque at the base tells us) also by Scarpagnino. It originally had a cone-shaped spire with coloured glazed tiles.




Ruskin said
The tomb, and of old the monument, of Paul Veronese. It is full of his noblest pictures, or of what once were such; but they seemed to me for the most part destroyed by repainting. I had not time to examine them justly, but I would especially direct the traveller's attention to the small Madonna over the second altar on the right of the nave, still a perfect and priceless treasure.

Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 10.00 to 5.00
Sundays: closed
A Chorus Church

Vaporetto San Basilio
 

San Trovaso
Francesco Smeraldi 1584-1657

History
The name is a Venetian blending of two saints: San Protasio and San Gervasio. The ancient church was renovated by the Barbarigo and Caravella families in the early 9th Century and rebuilt after the fire of 1105. This building then collapsed on 11th September 1583, with work on the present church beginning in the following year, probably to a design by Francesco Smeraldi, a pupil of Palladio, although sometimes Palladio himself is credited with the design. Consecration followed in 1657. There was hefty restoration work in the 19th Century, especially to the altars. Further work, mostly on the roof, was carried out in 1987.

The church
The building has two identical façades (modelled on Le Zitelle on Giudecca). This was said to be so that the two rival local factions, the Nicolotti and Castellani families, could each have an entrance of equal importance.

Interior
A Latin cross with six chapels along the nave.

A visit
For such an out-of-the-way church the bigness is what sticks in the memory - the previous church which collapsed would've fitted along the current transept. The net curtains in the clerestory windows and the cheesy piped new-age music are memorable too, but for the wrong reasons.

Art highlights
Works attributed to Tintoretto and his son, but likely mostly by the latter. And Palma il Giovane. In Tintoretto senior's The Temptations of St Anthony you might notice the 'harlot with flames playing around her loins' as Ruskin put it.

Campanile 53m (172ft) manual bells
The map from 1635 (see detail below) shows an earlier tower without the octagonal drum on top.

Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 8.00-11.00, 3.00-6.00

Vaporetto Zattere

 

San Vio
Giovanni Pividor 1865
 

The church was closed in 1808 and declared dangerous and demolished in July 1813. Fragments from the church were used in the building of the current chapel nearby, opened in 1865, for Gaspare Biondetti Crovato, to a design by Giovanni Pividor. Fragments from the house of Bajamonte Tiepolo were reused again too, around the door. It is now a private residence, belonging to one Piero Pinto, and closed to the public. I'm not even sure that it counts as a church, strictly speaking. A sweet little building, though, and an interesting history.

Local colour
A petrol pump, for the use of motor boats, once stood in the campo, as late as the 1970s.

Vaporetto Accademia


 

Sant’Agnese
Early 14th Century
 

Santa Margherita
Giovanni Battista Lambranzi  17th Century
 

Lost art
Three paintings - a Last supper, The Washing of the feet and Agony in the Garden painted by Tintoretto for this church are now in Santo Stefano.

Vaproretto Ca' Rezzonico





 

Santa Maria della Carità (Accademia)
Bartolomeo Bon 1441-52
 

The church in art
Canaletto's Grand Canal from Santa Maria della Carità to the Bacino di San Marco (right). Also to be seen in the background of his Stonemason's yard in the National Gallery in London.

Ruskin said
Once an interesting Gothic church of the fourteenth century, lately defaced, and applied to some of the usual important purposes of the modern Italians. The effect of its ancient façade may partly be guessed at from the picture of Canaletto, but only guessed at; Canaletto being less to be trusted for renderings of details, than the rudest and most ignorant painter of the thirteenth century.

Opening times
Monday 8.15-2.00
Tuesday-Sunday 8.15-7.15

Vaporetto Accademia
 

Santa Maria della Visitazione
1493-1524
 

History
Built by the Gesuati order, to replace an oratory dating from their arrival in Venice in 1390, this church is said to have been designed by Tullio Lombardo or Mauro Codussi. Building work began in 1493 with consecration coming in 1524. When the larger Gesuati church was built this church went through many changes before becoming a library in 1750. Suppressed in 1810, the church was reopened in 1825 and restored in 1884, and than again in 1947-8. The church is now the chapel of the Istituto Don Orione which has taken over the Gesuati's monastery complex (see below left). The complex had been an orphanage from suppression until Don Orione's purchase of the place in 1923. Orphans continued to be taught there until 1980 when the monastery became student accommodation. In the 1990s part of the complex was converted to 'religious boarding'.

The church
The lovely Lombardesque façade is probably the source of the Lombardo/Codussi attribution. The statues on top, The Saviour and two saints, are contemporary with the façade. There is a bocca del leone, a lion's mouth, to the right of the church where anonymous accusations could be posted. This one was for the Magistrati della Sanita (sanitation department)

Interior
A plain aisleless nave designed by Francesco da Mandello with a blind cupola and a choir. The Corinthian columns around the entrance were salvaged from the demolished oratory.

Art highlights
When it was suppressed by Napoleon it was stripped of its art (a Tintoretto Crucifixion taken from this church is now in the Gesuati) except for the coffered ceiling whose 58 compartments contain portraits of saints and prophets. These are Umbrian school and attributed to Pier Paolo Agabiti. This ceiling was found to be in need of restoration and work was due to begin in 1970. It was finally restored in the mid-1990s by Venice in Peril, following a dispute over ownership of the building which held up the work and led to further deterioration.
 

Opening times
(Update - September 2009 - closed for restoration work)
Monday-Saturday
Apr-Sep 8.00-12.30, 2.30-7.00
Oct-Mar 8.00-12.30, 2.30-6.00

Vaporetto Zattere

Santa Marta
15th Century
 

Santa Teresa
Andrea Cominelli 1688
 

Interior
Used to (and may still) contain a fine range of 17th Century art. These included a Madonna and saints by Guarana, Saint Teresa in glory by Ranieri and Christ crucified and the Magdalen by the Genoese painter G. B. Langetti. The latter was restored in 1949 and moved to the Museum of 17th Century Art in the Ca'Rezzonico.

Opening times
The church is 'closed for restoration'.

Vaporetto San Basilio
 

Spirito Santo
Antonio Abbondi 1506