Churches in Venice

There are 32 churches in this sestiere; most of them are Catholic but there are also an Evangelical Lutheran church and five synagogues.

So many great ones here, including the most beautiful Gothic church in town (Madonna dell’Orto), the most beautiful small church in the world (Santa Maria dei Miracoli), and the most crazy over-the-top Baroque church in the universe (Gesuiti).

There are Tintorettos galore in this sestiere (his Saint Agnes altarpiece from Madonna dell’Orto is on the left) as well as the second most famous relic in Venice (the body of Saint Lucy in San Geremia).

Chorus Pass churches in this sestiere are San Giobbe, Miracoli, Madonna dell’Orto, and Sant’Alvise.

Churches in Cannaregio

Gesuiti (Santa Maria Assunta)
Madonna dell’Orto
Miracoli (Santa Maria dei Miracoli)
San Bonaventura
San Canzian (San Canciano)
San Cristoforo
San Felice
San Geremia (Santi Geremia e Lucia)
San Giobbe
San Giovanni Grisostomo (San Giovanni Crisostomo)
San Girolamo
San Leonardo
San Marcuola (Santi Ermagora e Fortunato)
San Marziale
San Michele in Isola
Sant’Alvise
Santa Caterina
Santa Fosca
Santa Maria dei Penitenti (Le Penitenti)
Santa Maria dei Redentore (Chiesa delle Cappuchine)
Santa Maria Maddalena (La Maddalena)
Santa Maria Valverde (Santa Maria della Misericordia)
Santa Sofia
Santi Apostoli (Ss. Apostoli)
Scalzi (Santa Maria di Nazareth)
Volto Santo (Santa Maria dei Servi)
Scuola dell'Angelo (Chiesa Evangelica Luterana)

Synagogues:

Scuola Canton
Scuola Italiana
Scuola Levantina
Scuola Spagnola
Scuola Tedesca

Oratorio

Crociferi (next to Gesuiti)

I have a long wish list for Cannaregio: San Marziale (another church with a miracle-working Madonna statue, this one supposedly traveled to Venice on her/its own power); San Marcuola (the church on the Grand Canal with the unfinished façade, it has one of seven Tintoretto Last Suppers in Venice), and San Michele in Isola (the first Renaissance church in Venice, it’s out on the cemetery island which is traditionally considered to be a part of this sestiere). I also want to visit the synagogues, which you can do on a guided tour that begins at the Museum Ebraico.

At one time, San Marziale had a Titian Tobias and the Angel, but I’ve read that the painting’s been moved to Madonna dell”Orto so I want to check that out since I don’t remember seeing it the last time I was in that church.

Six weeks from today, I’ll be in Venice!

Update, Dec. 2007: Went inside San Marziale and San Marcuola, two of the churches on my wish list above. San Michele in Isola was closed for restoration but I learned that there are actually two churches on the cemetery island; I've added the beautiful San Cristoforo to both the church list and my personal list.

The Titian painting has been moved from San Marziale to Madonna dell' Orto; it's in the second chapel on the right.

Update, Dec. 2008: Found the Evangelical Lutheran church open. San Michele in Isola is still closed for restoration and remains at the top of my wish-list.

Update 11/10. Visited Santa Fosca. Beautiful little church.

This is the most famous of a number of churches in Venice that have or had legendary miracle-working paintings, icons, or sculptures of the Madonna. Santa Maria dei Miracoli is named for and was built to house its painting with legendary healing power.

When friends ask me for recommendations about what to see/do in Venice, I vary my answers depending on how long they’re going to be there and what they’re interested in. I realize that not everyone wants to go tromping around Venice looking for churches that probably won’t even be open when they get there! So my short list of “must-see” churches includes only three of them, and Miracoli is on that list (along with the Basilica di San Marco and the Frari).

Even people with no interest in churches should visit this one – for one, because they’ve never seen anything like it, and also because finding it will be an adventure. It took me a long time to find it the first time. There’s no view from afar of this church – you search for it, map in hand, and then all of sudden, it’s right there in front of you, and it’s so surprising and perfect and beautiful. It takes my breath away every time I see it.

Yesterday I wrote about finding fossils in the floor of San Giacomo dall’ Orio.
That was the first church where I saw one and I’ve since spotted them in several other churches. I don’t always remember to look for them (sometimes I get distracted by the art and architecture!) but when I do remember, I almost always find at least one. They are usually embedded in the red marble and look like big swirly shrimp. They are so fascinating to me.

In December, I found fossils in San Canciano (the one in the photo is from that church), Santa Maria Formosa, San Francesco della Vigna, and even in the Salute. I wonder if marble with a fossil in it was more valuable, back in the days when they were building these churches?

There’s just something so satisfying about finding them. It’s the same feeling I’d get as a kid when we’d look for four-leaf clovers out in the yard - it feels lucky! And yes, I realize that I probably look like a dork walking around a magnificent church staring at the floor. :)

Another part of it is that these churches all seem so ancient and holy to me, and they make me think about time (and long passages of time), and then the fossils connect it all back even further to pre-history.

Of course, “ancient” is relative….everything in Venice seems so old to me but I’m coming from the American perspective. Here in the USA, a church or building that’s 100 years old is “historic” while a church the same age in Italy would be considered “modern.” But the fossils are ancient no matter what.

Another thing I look for in every church is a Byzantine icon of the Madonna. Almost every church in Venice has at least one of these. Some of them are famous with legends about miracles and such, but some are just regular old beautiful icons. Even the more “modern" baroque churches usually have an icon somewhere, probably carried over from previous and older incarnations of the church itself. Some of them sit in big fancy altars while others are tucked away in the sacristy, but they are usually around somewhere. They are easier to find than the fossils!

Don’t let the nondescript exterior fool you, this is one of the strangest churches in Venice. Strange in a good way though – it was well worth the many tries it took to finally get inside this one.

San Marziale dates back to the 9th century, though it’s been rebuilt a couple of times since then. It was high on my wish list since it’s one of a dozen or so churches in Venice with a legend about a miracle-working Madonna, this one a wooden statue carved from a tree trunk. The story is that she came to Venice on an unmanned boat, guided there by her own power with the help of angels, and she began working miracles after her arrival, healing a blind child among others.

I also really wanted to see the high altar. My hero J.G. Links (Venice for Pleasure) seldom recommends that his readers go inside any buildings, churches or otherwise, but about this one he wrote, “San Marziale…if open, demands a moment to glance at the strange scene under the altar, Venetian baroque at its most charming and idiotic.”

Hugh Honour (Companion Guide to Venice) was more specific: “The high altar which looks like a celestial rock garden with St. Jerome and two friends (Faith and Charity) picnicking under a table is one of the more endearing if most preposterous baroque fantasies in Venice.”

The church has some decent art too including a Tintoretto and four acclaimed ceiling paintings by Sebastiano Ricci, and I’d been trying to find it open for several years with no luck. I love these churches but I also love the thrill of the hunt. I don’t get disappointed when they’re closed (and they often are), but I DO get excited when I find an elusive one open and finally one night in December, this one was.

I went in and the place was largely dark and smelled like flowers. No one else was there. None of the church’s great art was lit, and there were no light boxes. Only two altars had lights on and sure enough, they were the high altar with the crazy tableau and the altar with the miracle-working Madonna.

The most beautiful gothic church in town with one of the loveliest facades in Venice. Of all the many red brick-fronted churches, this one is special with its white stone tracery, trim, and sculpture.The church was originally named for the patron saint of travelers and gondoliers, San Cristoforo Martire, but early in its history the church came into possession of a miracle-working statue of the Madonna and Child, and the name changed.

There are a couple of different stories about this statue. One is the legend that the statue flew to Venice on its own power and landed in a nearby orchard. The other is that the statue was commissioned from sculptor Giovanni de Santi by another church (Santa Maria Formosa) which then rejected it after its completion. The scorned artist placed it in his garden where it began working miracles and attracting crowds of pilgrims. The statue was moved onto the high altar of this church which then became known as Madonna dell’Orto (Our Lady of the Garden or Orchard) or Madonna Odorosa (The Sweet-Smelling Madonna). The statue attracted many visitors whose financial donations probably helped the church to acquire its impressive collection of art.

I love this church. I should probably confess that I loved Elvis’ Graceland too. It’s not an off-the-wall comparison, believe it or not. Both places are completely unique and kinda crazy because of their over-the-top decor.

J.G. Links (Venice for Pleasure) noted that, “Nineteenth-century guidebook writers found the Gesuiti inexpressibly vulgar but taste changes and we may well find its interior witty and entertaining…” I don’t think it’s an either/or, really. Graceland is pretty vulgar but that’s what makes it entertaining!

But I don’t think the Gesuiti is vulgar at all. Despite all the excess, it works. After you recover from the sheer volume of decoration and look at the church as a whole, you might see a beautiful and harmonious space. Or you might think it’s the tackiest church you’ve ever seen. Either way, it’s a fun church to visit. Elvis would have loved it too.

This is the church with all the marble that looks like brocade fabric - I wrote about this one a few weeks ago here. This late 19th century colorized photo of the interior looks pretty cool.

Also worth checking out on Venice Daily Photo is this gorgeous aerial photo of the Basilica.

And Jill (softdrink) has some wonderful photos of churches in South Carolina and Georgia on her blog.

A new addition to my birdfeeder list except it's not a bird. When I got up this morning and went in the kitchen to make coffee, I looked out the window and saw an enormous possum in my feeder! What freaky creatures they are - I'd never seen one so up-close.

This lovely little church is out on the cemetery island, San Michele in Isola. Technically it’s part of Cannaregio since this island historically has been considered part of that sestiere but you do have to take the vaporetto out to visit it.

Before the fall of the Republic, there were two islands out here – San Michele and San Cristoforo della Pace, and both were monastery islands. Napoleon’s revamping of Venice included banning burials from Venice’s historic center and so after the monasteries were suppressed, the cemetery was moved out here and later, the two islands were merged into one.

There used to be two Renaissance churches here. The church called San Michele in Isola remains but the original San Cristoforo (built by the Lombardi family who also built Santa Maria dei Miracoli) was demolished and then rebuilt in the mid-19th century. So it’s another one of those so-called “modern” churches that’s now about 150 years old. I would love to know what the Lombardi church looked like and if anything from it was moved into the new church.

A view of the island from Fondamenta Nuove:

This lovely pink building is one of a handful of Protestant churches in Venice, the Chiesa Evangelica Alemanna or Evangelical Lutheran church.

Located in campo SS. Apostoli in Cannaregio, it was built in 1713 for the Scuola dell’ Angelo Custode (confraternity of the Guardian Angel), one of many charitable institutions that existed in the Venetian Republic. After Napoleon’s conquest, the scuola was suppressed, and the building was bought by Protestant German merchants who had been kicked out of their huge Grand Canal building (Fontego dei Tedeschi, which is now the Venice post office).

This marble Archangel Raphael and Tobias over the entrance is by Heinrich Meyring, best known for his work on the crazy façade of the church of San Moise.

One of the first Renaissance buildings in Venice, this pretty pink church is dedicated to San Giobbe (St. Job) who technically was never a Christian at all since he’s an Old Testament character. But Job’s famous trials (and the fact that he was restored to prosperity and good health) made him one of the “plague saints” who was revered during the many epidemics that swept into Venice over the centuries.

The lunette over the door shows St. Francis of Assisi and Job, and was carved by Pietro Lombardo who designed much of the church and, along with his sons and workshop, also decorated several chapels inside including the triumphal arch and a sculptural scene of the Annunciation that surround the high altar.

One of two churches in Venice dedicated to Mary Magdalene (the other is on the island of Guidecca), this Cannaregio church was founded in 1222, but the one we see today dates from an 18th century rebuilding over top of the medieval church.

It’s a Neoclassical church, round on the outside and hexagonal inside. There was some resistance towards round churches in Venice (Palladio’s plan to build the Redentore round was squashed), but that all changed after Santa Maria della Salute when "round" came into vogue in a big way.

The architect was Tomaso Temenza, a scholar and historian of Venetian architecture who built very few buildings. La Maddalena was built in 1760-89 and was a parish church for a few decades. The Venetian Republic fell to the French, the church was closed in 1820, and then at some point in the 19th century, a demolition order was issued. Gianantonio Selva (Temenza’s student and the architect who built the opera house La Fenice) fought the order and saved the church, but its bell tower was demolished in 1881.

A deconsecrated church in Cannaregio with a couple of great stories and some beautiful art that’s still in Venice though no longer in the church itself...

Santa Caterina was founded in the 11th century as a monastery and then became a convent for Augustinian nuns when a noble nun named Bortolotta Giustianian took over in 1289. The Santa Caterina religious complex included a convent with cloisters and this 15th century Gothic church that has a wooden ship’s keel ceiling and a large barco (singing gallery) for the nuns.

The first story concerns Bortolotta’s parents. Her father, nobleman Nicolo Giustinian, was a monk out on the Lido and after the plague wiped out his whole family, he received papal permission to leave the monastery and marry so the family line would continue. He married a woman with religious leanings herself and they had eight children in eight years, and then he returned to the monastery and his wife entered a convent.

ABC Wednesday is a meme that's been rolling through the alphabet for over five years. This week is the beginning of Round Ten, and I decided to join in the fun.

A is for Angel, and while there are many lovely angels in Venice, this is my favorite. This one can be found outside on the back of the church of Santa Fosca and is 700 or so years old, older than the church building itself. Santa Fosca was founded in the 10th century but rebuilt in 1679. More than likely, the angel was inside an older incarnation of the church and then moved outside when they rebuilt. She's a beautiful guardian for the little campo behind the church.

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