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Angelo
Raffaele
Francesco Contino 1618-1639
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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, having been founded in 640. This may be true, given the spread of Venice at the time, although the first
written record dates from 1193, the year in which the church was rebuilt
and reconsecrated following the destruction of the previous church by fire
in 1105. This church was itself demolished in the 17th Century being considered
to be beyond repair.
The Church
The current church was built in the 17th Century 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 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 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
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, and you can reach up and
touch it it's so low.
Literature
This church is central to the action in Salley Vickers' novel Miss
Garnet's Angel and so has become something of an essential destination
for readers of that book. This probably explains the much better chance
you'll find it open lately and it's recent spate of sprucings-up. So who
are we to quibble.
Opening times
Monday to Saturday 8.00-12.00, 3-5; Sunday 9.00-12 .00
Vaporetto San Basilio
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Carmini
early 16th Century
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History
Founded by the Carmelite fathers in 1286 and consecrated in 1348.
Rebuilt with a new façade facing the canal in the early 16th Century.
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 is the original 14th Century façade and features
Byzantine palm-leaf detailing.
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 floor cleaning equipment.
Cloisters
The cloister of the former monastery (below), 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, though.
Campanile
Rebuilt 1676 by Giuseppe Sardi because the previous one was leaning badly, topped with a small octagonal temple with
a bronze statue of the Madonna of Mount Carmel. This statue is actually a
copy sculpted in 1982 by Romano Vio after the original was struck by
lightening.
The church in art
Santa Maria del Carmelo and Scuola Grande dei Carmini by John
Singer Sargent (below right).
Opening times 12.30-7.00
Vaporetto Ca' Rezzonico or San Basilio
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Le Eremite
Giovanni Battista
Lambranzini 1693
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History
Built in 1693/94 by Giovanni Battista Lambranzini
for the Augustinian friars.
Became the chapel of the Istituto Magisteriale Maria Immacolata.
Vaporetto San Basilio
Opening times Closed |
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Gesuati
Giorgio Massari 1726-36
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History
A church and monastery was built here by the Poor Gesuati order in
1494-1524, who had previously occupied the nearby church of Sant’Agnese.
Their new church was dedicated to St Jerome, but became better known as
the Gesuati. 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 1725. The monastery to the left of the
church is now the home of the
Istituto Don Orione.
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.
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.
The church in art
Santa Maria del Rosario, known as Chiesa dei Gesuati, by
Rubens Santoro (below).
The Giudecca by David Roberts (detail below right).
Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 10.00 to 5.00
Sundays: closed
A Chorus Church
Vaporetto Zattere
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Ognissanti
16th Century
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History
Founded in 1472 by Cistercian nuns, with a convent and a hospice attached.
he church was rebuilt bigger from 1505 to 1580 and consecrated in 1586.
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 moved here because it was more salubrious. 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.
A visit in 2007
If you find this church open you 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.
Opening times
rare
Vaporetto San Basilio |
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Saint George's
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Photo by Brigitte Eckert
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Salute
Baldassare Longhena 1631-81
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The church that launched a thousand films.
History
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 (created by the demolition of a church
complex called The Trinity) and a competition was held, among the
conditions being that the church be flashy but not too expensive. Longhena’s winning
design took a Palladian base and made something baroque and theatrical.
The dome with its surrounding 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 now
it's silhouette now symbolises Venice in almost every film and TV programme that gets made
about the city.
Interior
The interior is impressive but unsurprising, given the external appearance
– an 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) and Tintoretto, amongst others, and a Byzantine icon of The
Virgin set into the somewhat overpopulated altar.
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.
Film and TV
Used extensively in establishing shots that say 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
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San Barnaba
Lorenzo Boschetti 1749-76
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History
Founded in the 9th Century, the current church dates from 1749-76 by
Lorenzo Boschetti, a follower of Massari. The façade is another
Greek temple front, but with even beefier columns than usual. The art is
minor stuff, although there is a recently-restored Holy family
which some, Bernard Berenson included, have attributed to Veronese.)
Opening times
Whereas the church used to be rarely open, it is currently (late 2007)
open 9.30 - 7.30 daily due to an exhibition of models of Leonardo's
machines, which is due to end on the 31st December 2007. Details
here. But there's a lot
of scaffolding and such inside too, which makes appreciation of the actual
fabric of the church pretty much impossible, including the ceiling fresco
by Cedini, a follower of Tiepolo.
In film
Featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - under the floor our hero
finds catacombs, rats and dead Crusaders, and later emerges from a manhole
in the campo. Katherine Hepburn fell into the canal in
front of the church in
Summertime.
Campanile
Brickwork with cone shaped steeple. Dates from the 11th
Century and so is one of Venice's oldest. Altered in the 14th century and
restored in 1882.
Vaporetto Ca' Rezzonico
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San Gregorio
Antonio di Cremona 15th
Century
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From Jacopo de'Barbari's map of 1500,
showing the back of the church to the right
and the cloister behind.
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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. Closely modelled on the nearby(ish) church of the
Carità. Has a three-part Gothic façade and a triple-apse faces 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.
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.
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.
In film
The church and the campo in front of the entrance features in
Who saw her
die? (left).
Vaporetto Salute
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San Nicolo dei Mendicoli
12th-16th Centuries
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History
This 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 may have been a military structure.)
Recent restoration work found the foundations of this church, which was
dedicated to St Lawrence, and that it became a Greek-cross shaped in the
8th Century. Fire destroyed this church in 1105 and the current church was
built and in the late 12th Century 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. Venice in Peril carried out restoration
work from 1971-77 including 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 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 colonades of columns with
14th Century capitals surmounted by rows of statues of the twelve
apostles dating from the 16th Century. And the paintings are mostly 17th
Century. So even more of a mixture of periods and styles than usual, but a
pleasing effect nonetheless based upon numerical harmonies.
Campanile
Dates from the 12th Century building (photo below right) and
damaged by a stray bomb in WWII. The clock was added in 1764.
Fresco: Crucifixion with saints from the 14th Century (photo
right) recently discovered. See
Jeff’s 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
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San Pantalon
Francesco Comino 1668-86
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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 the church's
orientation was swivelled by 90 degrees so that the (still unfinished,
looming brick) façade faced the campo.
Art highlights
A church I'd neglected on many visits, there was much I needed to go and look at here, it seemed. Most especially 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. I
had been prepared somewhat by reading all of this but when I
actually got 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 some 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 (his last) The Miracle of San Pantalon
which he began painting a year before he died, but you have to
put your €.50 in the slot for the light 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
Built in
1732 and attributed to Giovanni Scalfarotto.
To me it looks a lot like a vibrator (see left) I'm sorry.
Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 4.00-6.00
Vaproretto Ca' Rezzonico
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San Sebastiano
Antonio Scarpagnino 1508-48 |
In a word: Veronese.
History
The first church on this site was an oratory to Santa Maria Assunta,
founded in the mid 14th Century by the Girolamini - the order of the
Hermits of Saint Jerome. Between 1455-68 it was replaced by a church also
dedicated to Mary, but to Saint Sebastian too in thanksgiving to the
saint for his deliverance of the local population from the plague of 1464.
The building of the current church and its monastery
saw the church's façade switched from facing the Campazzo San Sebastiano
(as seen in Barbari's map of of 1500) to the current arrangement facing
the canal. 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's spectacular masterwork. This was
his parish church and he began decorating it at the age of 30,
working here from 1555 to 1570. The ceiling shows scenes from the life of
Esther and the walls show the life of Saint Sebastian. The trompe
l'oeuil painting here is almost unnerving in the way blends so smoothly with the architecture
that had been finished only a few years before. You get the impression
that the church was built specifically to house the trompe l'oeuil 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.
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 1544-47, also by Scarpagnino. It originally had a cone-shaped
steeple with coloured glazed tiles.
Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 10.00 to 5.00
Sundays: closed
A Chorus Church
Vaporetto San Basilio
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San Trovaso
Francesco Smeraldi
1584-1657
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History
The name is a Venetian blending of two saints: San Protasio and San
Gervasio. The church was founded in the early 9th
Century and rebuilt after a fire in 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, with consecration following in 1657. Hefty restoration in the
19th Century, especially to the altars.
The church
The building has two identical façades (modelled on Le Zitelle). This was
said to be so that the two rival factions, the Nicolotti and
Castellani, could have an equal entrance each.
Interior
A Latin cross with six chapels along the nave. The bigness is what
sticks in the memory - the church which collapsed 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 by Tintoretto and his son 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.
Opening times
Monday to Saturday: 8.00-11.00, 3.00-6.00
Vaporetto Zattere
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Santa Margherita
Giovanni Battista Lambranzi 17th Century
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History
One of the oldest churches in Venice, originally founded in 853 during reign of doge Pietro Tradonico. The
current church dates from the 1687 rebuilding by Giovanni Battista Lambranzi.
Saint Margaret of Antioch was a saint very popular in the East, as was
Saint Pantaleon who also has a church nearby, suggestion that this area
was popular with Byzantine merchants. The church was suppressed in 1808, when the upper part of the campanile was
demolished. (But why only the top half?) The painting below, by Gabriel
Bella, shows the campanile intact in the late 18th Century, though looking a bit
wonky.
The building was later used as an evangelical church and a cinema. Long
abandoned, it is now used by Venice University's architecture faculty.
Peering through the door you'll see a plain space with the look of a
conference centre, the pews having been replaced by rows of
chairs. Various carvings from the church
have been set into the campanile and the walls of the adjacent house.
Vaproretto Ca' Rezzonico
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Santa Maria della Carità
(Accademia)
Bartolomeo Bon 1441-52
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The church of Our Lady of Charity and the Scuola della Carità are now
the Accademia Gallery. The facade is to your left as you face the main
entrance to the gallery, or will be if the scaffolding ever comes down.
History
The first church and convent on this site were founded in 1134 by an
Augustinian order of friars from Ravenna. In 1260 the buildings passed to
the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carità, making it the oldest of the
six Scuole Grande in Venice. (The confraternity had been established in
1260 in the church of San Leonardo in Cannaregio.) A guildhall was built
beside the convent in 1344, followed in 1441-52 by a larger church built
by Bartolomeo Bon. The convent was rebuilt in 1552 to a design by
Palladio. Following the church's suppression in 1807 the whole complex was
converted into a home for the Venetian Academy by Giannantonio Selva. Work
finished in 1810 and the gallery opened in 1817. It contains many works
from the suppressed and demolished churches mentioned elsewhere on this
website.
The church
Room 23, the last big room on the tour of the Accademia, which houses
temporary exhibitions, is the upper part of the church, but there's
nothing much to see or idea to be gained. The other rooms were converted
from rooms in the original Scuola and convent by Carlo Sarpa in 1950. The
first room, the former chapter house of the Scuola, has a gilded ceiling
said to be by Marco Cozzi. It is one of the two rooms where original
features can be seen. The other is the albergo of the Scuola, which is
adjacent to the chapter house, but comes at the end of the tour. It has
benches and a 15th Century ceiling, along with Titian's very architectural
Presentation of the Virgin in its original postion.
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
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Sant’Agnese
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History
Founded in the 10-11th Century and rebuilt early in the 14th,
suppressed by the French in 1810 and stripped of its art and furnishings.
Reopened in 1872 as an oratory for the nearby Educational Institute of the
Cavanis Fathers The façade and interior were recently restored.
Art highlight
Reportedly the only remaining art of note is The Guardian Angel
by Lattanzio Querena.
Lost art
The Coronation of the Virgin by Michele Giambono, now in the
Accademia, is 'most probably' (says the catalogue) the same painting
commissioned in 1447 by Giovanni Dotto for Sant’Agnese. Giambono was also
a mosaicist - his work can be seen in San Marco.
Vaporetto Zattere
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Santa Maria della Visitazione
1493-1524
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History
Built by the Gesuati order, to replace an oratory dating to 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, which 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)
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
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.
Opening times
Monday-Saturday
Apr-Sep 8.00-12.30, 2.30-7.00
Oct-Mar 8.00-12.30, 2.30-6.00
Vaporetto Zattere
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Santa Marta
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History
This 15th Century church, long deconsecrated, was used as a
railway company
warehouse in the 20th Century when it still had its partly restored 'ancient roof
of sprung beams' according to Lorenzetti. At one time it was said to have
possessed the hand of the saint.
It
is now a very clean brick box in between a road and a car park. It seems to
have had all the life and aging scrubbed off, leaving nice warm-coloured
brickwork but very little character.
Vaporetto Santa Marta |
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Santa Teresa
Andrea Cominelli - late 17th Century
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History
The church and convent were built in the late 17th Century by Andrea
Cominelli (who had worked with Longhena) for the Sisters of Saint Theresa
and consecrated in 1688.
The convent (to the left of the church) was a hostel for homeless people
and a nursery school in the 20th Century. It is now home to the faculty of
arts and design of the The University Iuav of Venice.
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
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Spirito Santo
Antonio Abbondi 1506
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History
The church and its convent were founded in 1483 by Maria Caroldo and rebuilt in 1506
to a design by Antonio Abbondi (known as Lo Scarpagnino). In 1520 the
Zattere fondamenta was built and the apse was demolished and the present Lombardesque
façade built. It was finished in 1524 by Giacomo de Bernardis, under
Scarpagnino's supervision. Suppressed in 1806, but reopened a few years
later.
The interior and art highlights
The interior is said to be be very redolent of two hundred years of
restoration. The back of the façade is taken up with a funerary monument
to Paolo Paruta, an historian of the Venetian Republic, said to be by
Longhena and built around 1651. His son and brother are interred here too. Also said to contain
pictures by Guarana and Palma il Giovanne.
The church in art
Painted by John Singer Sargent (below)
Opening times
Always closed
Vaporetto Zattere
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