Churches in Venice

The sestiere of Dorsoduro includes the island of Guidecca across the canal; there are 28 churches in this sestiere, seven of them on Guidecca.

The most visible and famous church in this sestiere is Santa Maria della Salute. I wonder how many zillions of photos have been taken of this church from the Accademia bridge? San Pantalon has one of the most amazing church ceilings anywhere, and San Sebastiano is beautiful, filled with paintings by Veronese (see right). My personal favorite in this area is San Nicolo dei Mendicoli, an ancient and lovely Veneto-Byzantine masterpiece. It’s not the easiest church to find but it’s so worth the effort.

Chorus Pass churches in this sestiere are Gesuati, San Sebastiano, and Redentore.

This pretty little pink church faces a quiet canal in Dorsoduro. It was founded along with a convent in 1693 by a group of Augustinian nuns from the nearby church of San Trovaso. Its full name is Gesu, Guiseppe e Maria delle Eremite (Jesus, Joseph, and Mary of the Hermits), and “hermits” in this case is a reference to nuns who lived lives of complete seclusion and prayer, often in small cells inside churches.

The church and convent were closed by the French in 1810 and then taken over in 1863 by Canossian nuns, an order that educates young women. Today this order runs a teacher training college in the former convent with 90 rooms for female university students.

I’d love to see the inside of this church – various books report that the interior is richly decorated and quite a contrast from the simple facade. It’s one of those churches made for nuns, with a high altar that separates the public part of the church from the section where the nuns could come to church but remain unseen. There’s a photo of the church’s very ornate ceiling on the Canossian order’s website. Lorenzetti wrote that the church has (or had) a large 15th century gilded wood relief of the Madonna della Misericordia.

It’s currently closed for restoration – the upper window is covered with plastic, and you can also see the water seeping up the façade. A brief mention on the UNESCO website says, “The Church of the Eremite took another small step towards being able to reopen with the completed restoration of four wall paintings depicting the Miracles of St. Augustine by Francesco Pittoni with finance being provided by the Venice in Peril fund.” That “small step” was in 2002, and I don’t know what’s happened since then. Maybe this one will reopen in my lifetime!

This Dorsoduro church has existed since at least the 11th century and has only recently reopened for public Mass. As far as I know, that’s the only way to visit it right now, and I'd really like to see the inside of this one because even though the church has been renovated and restored over the centuries, part of the original Veneto-Byzantine interior remains, as described by James McGregor in Venice From the Ground Up:

“Though it was remodeled in the Middle Ages, the original walls of the nave were never destroyed or covered over. Above the roofs of the side aisles, their wonderful pre-Gothic brickwork – a repeating pattern of steep, cusped arcades in the shape of a cursive “M” – is still visible.”

I’m always amazed by the beautiful things the early Venetians could do with mere brick and I really want to see those arcades.

I was so charmed by this place when I first saw it on my way to the Guggenheim museum during my first trip to Venice. So cute and I love those stripes! San Vio is a lovely little campo and one of the very few with a Grand Canal view – the red park benches are a nice (and free) place to sit, rest your feet, and watch the world go by on the canal.

This church was founded in 912 and it's another church with a nickname – San Vio is short for Santi Vito e Modesto, a couple of Sicilian saints. In 1310, there was an attempt to overthrow the Venetian government, and the rebels were squashed on June 15, St. Vito’s feast day, and so the Republic rebuilt and expanded this church to honor and express gratitude to the saint. Decorative elements from the defeated rebel Bajamonte Tiepolo’s palazzo were removed and used to decorate the façade of the church. And every year on June 15 for the next 400-plus years, the Doge and the Senate visited this church in a grand processional parade to thank the saint some more.

Yesterday’s article about the church of San Vio included a sweet story about the little Contessa walking on the water across the Grand Canal, and I decided to see what else I could find out about this girl.

The E.V. Lucas version of the story says that the little Contessa Tagliapietra lived in sestiere San Marco and walked across the Grand Canal to get to the church of San Vio in sestiere Dorsoduro. Well….I found a couple of other books that claim that she lived in campo San Vio and that she really walked across the canal to get to her favorite church of San Maurizio! I had to laugh. I guess it doesn’t really matter which direction she was going – it’s the “walking on water” part that really counts. I did find a few more details about her life though.

It seems that this noble born Venetian girl lived from 1288-1308, and she was a beautiful and devout child who loved to go to church everyday. When it came time for her father to arrange a marriage for her, he forbade her from going out alone (even to church), and he paid the gondoliers not to row her across the canal (the Accademia bridge didn’t exist at that time). So that’s when she walked across. One version says that she took her apron off, put it on the water and stepped on it, and it propelled her across the Grand Canal like a jet ski (well, it didn’t say that, but that’s the image I get). Another version says she walked on a thread from her dress.

The story of this miracle quickly spread around town, and marriage proposals poured in. I’m sure she was tempted to say “so there” to her father but maybe not, since she was almost a saint. She refused to marry anyone and then died at age 20.

Legend has it that the whole city came to her funeral and she was buried in the church of San Vio. She wasn’t ever declared an actual saint but instead she was beatified which gave her the title “Blessed.” And for centuries, Venetian mothers brought their newborn infants to her tomb in San Vio because it was believed that her blessing and protection would keep the children safe from drowning. It’s a nice story! But now I wonder what happened to her body when they tore the larger church down…

This weekend (July 19 and 20) is the Festa del Redentore (Feast of the Redeemer) in Venice, a celebration of thanksgiving for the end of a 16th century Black Plague epidemic. It’s one of Venice’s most popular holidays complete with fireworks, a temporary pontoon bridge from the Zattere to the church of the Redentore on Guidecca island, feasting and celebration on boats in the lagoon, and a high holy Mass with the Patriarch of Venice at the church.

Venice was hit by numerous plague outbreaks over the centuries, some more horrifying than others, and the one in 1575-77 was particularly bad, killing a third of the population (over 50,000 people including Titian). John Julius Norwich (The History of Venice) describes Venice as an eerie ghost town during this time, since anyone who could had fled the city, no businesses were open, and people were dying right and left. Imagine all the funerals (maybe the plague is one of the reasons that Venice has so many churches?).

So in September 1576, the Doge announced that the Republic intended to build a church dedicated to Christ the Redeemer to give thanks for deliverance from this plague. Now the plague wasn’t over when they made this vow – in a way, the government was using Field of Dreams “build it and they will come” positive thinking, along the lines of “if we thank you now, you’ll make it go away.”

A government negotiating with the Higher Power is so fascinating to me, having been raised on the whole “separation of church and state” thing. It would be like George Bush (sorry, bad example but he’s what we’ve got now) going on TV tonight to announce that we are going to build a great cathedral to celebrate the end of global warming. Hey, maybe it’s not such a bad idea!