Churches in Venice

There are 27 churches in this sestiere; only Cannaregio (with 32) has more.

San Zaccaria is a must because of its drop-dead gorgeous Bellini altarpiece, but there’s much else to see including a nice gothic chapel and a crypt that you can visit if it’s not full of water.

Another favorite is San Francesco della Vigna with its beautiful Madonna (see left) by the Franciscan friar Antonio da Negroponte, another mysterious artist. This is his only known painting. If you’re only going to bat once, you might as well knock it out of the park as he did. I also love Cima da Conegliano's Baptism of Christ that's on the high altar of San Giovanni in Bragora.

San Giorgio degli Schiavoni is a former scuola and church that’s now a museum; it contains some of my favorite paintings in Venice – the Carpaccio cycle which includes St. George and the Dragon and St. Augustine in his Study (the saint’s dog must be the cutest dog ever painted).

Chorus Pass churches in this sestiere are San Pietro di Castello and Santa Maria Formosa.

The church of San Lorenzo is well-known to readers of the excellent mystery series by Donna Leon. Her hero, Commissario Guido Brunetti, often looks at “the eternally-scaffolded façade of San Lorenzo” from his office window and reflects bemused on the never-ending restoration “work” with motionless cranes and no workmen in sight.

“Venice is covered with active work sites….but there are also eternal projects, work zones without workers that persist for decades, producing nothing….The church of San Lorenzo is the most notorious….” (James McGregor, Venice From the Ground Up, 2006)

I haven’t been inside this church but I keep checking by “just in case” and on my last trip, I found a cat sanctuary on the front porch!

The Greek Orthodox cathedral with a leaning tower, this church is dedicated to San Giorgio (St. George), the charismatic dragon-fighting, princess-saving saint.

It’s kinda cool that there are four churches in Venice dedicated to St. George – two Catholic, one Greek Orthodox, and one Anglican (founded by the British). He’s a superhero/saint for all seasons, and there are images of him and that dragon all over Venice.

A charming parish church with a couple of famous baptisms.

While there’s been a church on this site since the 8th century, the late Gothic church we see today was built in 1475. The church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist; “bragora” is a Venetian word of obscure meaning.

Located in the corner of Campo Bandiera e Moro in Castello, this church is not that far from the tourist-packed Riva degli Schiavoni. It’s a nice break from the crowds to go to this quiet campo and visit this church.

This is one of the most beautiful campanili in Venice. The leaning tower in Pisa is more famous but Venice has more than one that's a bit wonky. In all honesty, nothing in Venice looks particularly straight but there are at least four other church towers with fairly dramatic tilts: Santo Stefano, San Martino (on Burano), San Pietro Martire (on Murano), and San Giorgio dei Greci (this one had some work a few years ago and is a bit more upright than it used to be, I think).

The San Pietro campanile was the first Renaissance bell tower in Venice, built in 1463-64, and was the third one built for this ancient church.

The first tower, built in 774, collapsed after an 1120 fire. The second was destroyed in a storm in 1442. And even this one has undergone repairs several times after being hit by lightning and damaged in storms. This tower is completely clad in slabs of Istrian stone, and it’s the weight of those slabs that causes it to lean. It’s a beauty.

I love the way the Venetians give nicknames to their churches. The real name of this church is Santa Maria della Consolazione but no one ever calls it that – it's known instead by its charming nickname which translates to Our Lady of the Fava Bean.

And there are stories galore about how the church got that name….a local family named Fava, the fact that beans used to be unloaded from a barge in the nearby canal, a pastry shop close by that sold cookies shaped like fava beans on All Soul’s Day. Some say it’s named for the nearby bridge and canal (boring!). One of the best stories is about a smuggler who was hiding salt in a bag of dried beans and was caught by the police who were getting ready to search his bags. He said a quick but heartfelt prayer to the miracle-working Madonna on the wall and his smuggled salt disappeared, leaving only the beans and he went free.

And yes, this church has a miracle-working Madonna too. This is one that just appeared out of nowhere on the wall of Ca' Dolce and began working miracles, saving smugglers from prison, etc. So a group of devotees bought the house, removed the image, and built a church to put it in. The first church was very small and was completed in 1500 (around the same time that churches were built for other miracle-working images in town, at the Miracoli and Santa Maria Maggiore). It’s fascinating that there was such a rash of miracles at that particular time in Venice.

A charmingly cluttered parish church on a canal in Castello not far from the Arsenale, this Renaissance church isn’t listed in most guidebooks probably because it doesn’t have any famous masterpieces, but it’s got a nice eclectic collection of art including some modern 20th century works mixed in with the old stuff which ranges from Byzantine to Baroque. It’s a pretty church with good vibes overall and lots of interesting things to see.

I like the fact that this church feels less like a museum and more like an active part of a neighborhood. One afternoon when I visited in December, the church ladies were having a rummage sale out front –it doesn’t get much better than combining a church visit with some shopping!

On the façade of the church, there’s a bocca di leone (lion’s mouth) – these are the letter-boxes where Venetians could lodge complaints and report crimes, the Republic’s version of a crime stopper’s hotline, maybe?

These things were all over town at one time, and different mouths were designated for different grievances; this particular one was the place to complain about blasphemers and the irreverent (!). It might be fun to read some of the letters that were put into this one.

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "scary"

This stone face is in Venice on the church of Santa Maria Formosa, over the entrance to the bell tower. It’s meant to be scary although these days, most people just find it funky and interesting.

But back in the Middle Ages, people believed that church bell towers were particularly vulnerable to invasion by evil spirits (maybe because the towers were often getting struck by lightning or falling down). So a tradition began of putting some kind of protective sculptural image on the towers.

Some bell towers have benevolent images like saints or angels, but others, like this one, have grotesque images designed to frighten the demons away.

In the photo on the left, you can see it over the door. On the right, the beautiful tower that it’s been protecting for over 300 years.

Happy weekend and have a nice Halloween next week!

This is such a lovely and magical spot. The 12th century cloister of Sant’ Apollonia is the oldest surviving cloister in Venice and today is part of the Museo Diocesano di Venezia (Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art).

The cloister was part of a Benedictine monastery adjacent to the now demolished church of SS. Filippo e Giacomo. The monastery was built for monks who originally resided on the lagoon island of Ammiana, which sank after the Christmas Day earthquake of 1223, and so the monks moved to Venice. Sinking islands and monasteries…it makes me think about scuba-diving archeologists and what all they might find in the waters of that lagoon.

Also known as San Giuseppe di Castello, this church was built in 1512 by the Venetian Senate in response to popular demand for a church dedicated to Joseph, father of Jesus. The church complex also included a small convent and three cloisters for Augustinian nuns from Verona.

In 1801 the convent was taken over by Salesian nuns who opened a girl’s boarding school. Today the convent is a Nautical Institute while the church is a still consecrated and active parish church, though currently undergoing restoration.

These are the gates to the Arsenale, the famed shipyards which were the source of much of the Venetian Republic's wealth. There used to be a small Renaissance church to the right of these gates and thanks to a painting by Canaletto, we can see what it looked like.

Madonna dell 'Arsenale was built in the 16th century by an unknown architect who modeled it on a Greek temple. Looks like a sweet little place. It was demolished in the early 19th century.

Tucked away on a little calle in Castello north of Via Garibaldi, this lovely 14th century Gothic relief shows the Virgin and Child with saints Peter and Paul. The child is handing a key to Peter and a scroll to Paul.

The relief is over an entrance to a former religious complex that once included a hospice(Ospizio dei Santi Pietro e Paolo) for pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land, a convent, and an oratory dedicated to San Gioachino, father of the Virgin Mary. The hospice was founded in the 11th c. and was later converted to a hospital which was one of the largest in Venice. The complex was closed by the French in the early 19th century; now it's city property and I've never found it open and don't know what (if anything) it's used for today.

On many of the "must-see in Venice" lists, San Zaccaria is a church with lots of layers and art that spans the centuries and styles – it’s a fascinating place but even someone not into churches should pop into this one and spend 10 minutes or so with the Bellini altarpiece, one of the great masterpieces in the city.

One of the San Magno churches, San Zaccaria was founded in the 7th century and then rebuilt after an 1105 fire. The church we see today was built in 1456-1515 and parts of the older churches were incorporated. The façade is a blend of Gothic and Renaissance styles, and the church has an enormous collection of art from Gothic to Baroque. The campanile (12th century) is one of the oldest in the city. San Zaccaria was John the Baptist’s father; some Byzantine emperor gave his body to Venice as a gift, and it's inside the church too.

The photos above show Giovanni Bellini’s Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, in the church of San Zaccaria where there are almost always a group of people gathered in front of the painting in rapt silence. So many recognizable Venetian details in this painting: the gold mosaics above the Virgin, the red and white marble floor, the mascaron on the top of the throne, a Murano glass lamp hanging down, the Lombardi carvings surrounding the scene, all the glimpses of veined marble. The architecture in the painting is connected to the actual frame itself with tiny glimpses of trees and skies on each side. Everyone is so quiet and beautiful, and only the young angel looks out at us.