Churches in Venice

I went to a you-pick blueberry farm this morning. I went at 8 AM to beat the heat but even so, it was still pretty hot. The place where I picked uses natural growing practices and no pesticides. I found it on Pick Your Own which lists you-pick places all over the world.

They are such beautiful plants.

Here's my bucket; I picked about 4 pounds. Most of them are in the freezer but I saved a few to eat today and tomorrow. Happy 4th of July to those who celebrate it!

Visit the home of ABC Wednesday to find more Round 10 participants!

Yay! We've made it to Z, the last letter in the alphabet. This has been a fun challenge. Thanks to all the folks who have visited and left such lovely comments on my blog.

So, here is the Zattere (the word means "rafts"). If you go to Venice, you're sure to spend some time walking along the waterfront street (or quay) called the Zattere and admiring its fantastic views.

From "Venice and Its Lagoon" by Giulio Lorenzetti:

"This broad promenade was known in the old days as la Carbonaria from the coal which was unloaded here. It was paved in 1519 and is today one of the prettiest walks in the city at midday along beside the wide Giudecca Canal, looking towards the Giudecca island. The name comes from the "zattere" (rafts) of timber which were brought down the rivers and moored here."

This coming weekend is the Festa del Redentore, a celebration that began in the mid-16th century to celebrate the end of a terrible outbreak of plague in Venice. The Venetians build a temporary bridge from the Zattere across the Giudecca canal to the church of the Redentore and walk across in thanksgiving.

Here is a view of some of the buildings along the Zattere, taken from a vaporetto in the canal. The larger church is the Gesuati and the smaller one is Santa Maria della Visitazione.

Zattere is also the name of a vaporetto (water bus) stop in this part of Venice~

Another view of the Zattere stop and the church~

Walking along the Zattere, you might notice this former door that's now a window with a sculpture of a girl with her hair tied beneath her chin~

You can also find this small shrine along the Zattere~

There's a silver saint inside the shrine. It might be Padre Pio but I'm not sure.

Visit the home of ABC Wednesday to find more Round 10 participants!

Many of the street shrines in Venice have metal gates protecting the sacred image inside. The decorative metal work is often beautiful though it can make photographing the inside of the shrine a challenge.:)

This shrine, close to the Rialto market, has a metal sunburst or floral pattern on its gate. There's been a shrine at this location since 1310 - the original shrine was probably dedicated to San Matteo (St. Matthew); there was a now-demolished church dedicated to San Matteo nearby.

The sacred image inside this shrine today is a statue of the Madonna and Child. Sometimes Jesus is a baby but in this case, he's an exuberant toddler throwing his arms out to bless us.

There's another interesting metal feature of this shrine. On either side, the marble is carved with an image of a vase or urn, and a little piece of metal is inserted in the carving so that a floral offering can be attached. So charming!

The photos above were taken in 2010. Here's an interesting comparison below - the same shrine as seen in 2008. Lots of changes!

The sacred image was a framed painting of Mary, not a statue, and there aren't any green sprigs in the metal thingamajigs on the sides. Looks like the marble has been cleaned since 2008 too.

See a list of upcoming Saturday Photo Hunting themes on Gattina's website here.

San Maurizio is a deconsecrated church in Venice that's now a music museum (Il Museo della Musica di Venezia). More info about the church is here.

It's a cool place. It still looks like a church inside, with altars and sculpture and art, but also has antique musical instruments on display, music playing, and CDs for sale. You can see more photos of the interior on the museum's Facebook page.

Here's a photo of the entrance. As you can see, admission is free. Check out all the orbs in this pic!

Thanks for visiting and have a good weekend.

See a list of upcoming Saturday Photo Hunting themes on Gattina's website here.

In my last post, I wrote about the Museo della Musica di Venezia, housed in the deconsecrated church of San Maurizio. Here’s some more info about the church itself and its history.

This church was founded in the 9th century and rebuilt four times over the centuries. It was a parish church until the late 18th century when it was suppressed by the French and then demolished. During this period after the fall of the Venetian Republic, over 40 churches in Venice were destroyed permanently, so it’s very unusual that San Maurizio was so quickly rebuilt and consecrated again in 1828. Why did they choose to rebuild this particular one? The "new" San Maurizio was rebuilt in the neoclassical style with a design inspired by the demolished (and not rebuilt) Renaissance church of San Geminiano which was located in Piazza San Marco facing the Basilica.

The campanile (bell tower) in the photo below belongs to the nearby church of Santo Stefano. A previous incarnation of San Maurizio did have a free standing Gothic bell tower but it was demolished in 1564. Today the church has Roman bells on the roof. The relief carved on the facade shows the Martrydom of San Maurizio and his men.

About the saint – San Maurizio (St. Maurice) was a 3rd century Roman soldier, one of six thousand soldiers who converted to Christianity and were then martyred. There’s a faded image of him on the circa 1521 vera da pozzo in the campo in front of the church.

There’s another more elegant image of San Maurizio on the former Scuola degli Albanasi next door to the church.

This church/museum is well worth a visit. Admission is free, and the opening hours are generous (9:30 - 7:30 daily). It's easy to find too, along the main drag from Piazza San Marco to the Accademia bridge.

A few shrines in Venice with paintings (or copies of paintings) inside of them~

This shrine contains a copy of a painting of the Madonna and Child; the original resides in the nearby church of the Gesuati. The tabernacle is dated at the bottom: 1860.

The painting inside this shrine is very degraded, but the the orange metal flowers are cheerful and make me smile. This one is dated too, in Roman Numerals, MDCLXV (1665).

This fancy Baroque shrine is dated 1717. That date applies to the elegant marble tabernacle, not to the image inside which is a copy of a painting of the Virgin of Lourdes.

The Deposition of Christ. This painting looks familar but I can't place it. Anyone recognize it?

Thanks for visiting and have a good weekend.

See a list of upcoming Saturday Photo Hunting themes on Gattina's website here.

This detail from a Canaletto painting of Piazza San Marco shows the Renaissance church of San Geminiano as it looked for 250 years before it was demolished by the French. It’s just so odd to see a church there facing the Basilica di San Marco.

Today there’s a memorial in the pavement close to the entrance of the Correr Museum, with a drawing of the façade and an inscription that notes that the architect, Jacopo Sansovino, built the new church of San Geminiano in 1557, and it was demolished in 1807. It’s interesting that this memorial slab was installed in 1937, 130 years after the church was destroyed. Gone but clearly not forgotten.

Sansovino’s church was at least the third incarnation of this one. Legend has it that San Geminiano was founded in 554, making it one of the most ancient churches in Venice. I learned from Secret Venice that there’s another memorial slab in the Piazza that commemorates a different and older version of the church, which was demolished in the 13th century as part of a Piazza San Marco expansion project. We don't know what this church looked like but best guess is that it was Byzantine. Thanks so much to Bert for sharing his photo of this plaque which can be found in the vicinity of Caffe Florian.

The church was moved further back when it was rebuilt and in de Barbari’s map of 1500, you can see that the next incarnation of the church had a free standing Gothic campanile. The Sansovino church had two small attached towers, not a free standing tower, as you can see in the 19th century etching below.

Sansovino’s son, Francesco, wrote a history and guide to Venice in 1581; here’s how he described his father’s church:

“Perhaps the most ornate in the city, being faced both inside and out with precious marbles and Istrian stone, exceedingly rich, and perfectly conceived as a structure.”

In “A History of Venice,” John Julius Norwich wrote that San Geminiano was “one of the most spectacular small treasure-houses in the city.” When the Venetians stole the body of San Rocco from France in 1484, the holy relics resided in this church for a few years until the saint's own church was built.

So when San Geminiano was destroyed, its treasures and tombs were dispersed, and not all of them remained in Venice. Sansovino’s tomb was moved to the monastery adjacent to La Salute (he was later moved to San Marco), the tomb of John Law was relocated to San Moise, and the relics of San Geminiano himself (a 4th century bishop saint) were moved to the new 19th century church of Santissimo Nome di Gesu in the sestiere of Santa Croce.

The lovely Renaissance altar and its sculptures were moved to the church of San Giovanni di Malta; you can see photos of it on AnnaLivia’s blog.

The church’s organ doors by Veronese are now in the Galleria Estense in Modena. Here they are~

The 19th century church of San Maurizio is supposed to pay homage to San Geminiano and perhaps the interior design is similar, but the facades are pretty different.