Churches in Venice

There are 19 churches in the sestiere of San Marco (which includes the island of San Giorgio Maggiore).

My favorites in this sestiere are the Basilica, of course; San Salvador (a beautiful church with an amazing Titian Annunciation); and San Giorgio Maggiore (awesome views from the campanile and a gorgeous church with some great art).

I also like Santo Stefano with its leaning tower and wooden ceiling.

San Vidal has a painting by Carpaccio on the high altar (see left); the saint is riding a horse that was supposedly modeled on one of the four horses of San Marco.

Chorus Pass churches in this sestiere are Santa Maria del Giglio and Santo Stefano.

Churches in San Marco

Basilica di San Marco
San Bartolomeo (San Bortolomio)
San Basso
San Beneto (San Benedetto)
San Fantin (Madonna di San Fantino)
San Gallo
San Giorgio Maggiore
San Luca
San Maurizio
San Moise
San Salvador
San Samuele
San Teodoro
San Vidal (San Vitale)
San Zulian (San Guiliano)
Santa Croce degli Armeni
Santa Maria del Giglio (Santa Maria Zobenigo)
Santi Rocco e Margherita (Ss.Rocco,Stefano e Margherita)
Santo Stefano

Oratory

Sant’Angelo (Oratorio dell’ Annunziata)

At the top of my “wish list” for this sestiere is San Fantin which is very close to the newly reopened La Fenice. I’ve been by this church many times but it’s never been open. It supposedly has (or had) a miraculous image of the Virgin that was brought to Venice from somewhere in the East.

Currently, there are three campanili (bell towers) that you can go in (and up) in Venice, and two of them are in this sestiere (San Marco and San Giorgio Maggiore); the third one is on the island of Torcello. There are plans to open the campanile of the church of San Salvador soon, which will give us another view from above with a different perspective since San Salvador is closer to the Rialto Bridge. I’m psyched about this! I hope it's open in December.

Update, Dec. 2007: Learned that San Fantin is closed indefinitely for restoration. I also learned that San Teodoro is a church not an oratory so I've moved it into the church list.

A lady at San Salvador told me that their campanile project is stalled. Oh well, stay tuned.

French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir visited Venice in 1881 and painted several scenes including this one of Piazza San Marco. He did a fine job of capturing the Basilica’s overall sense of color, I think. He even makes the pigeons look nice!

This painting is in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

One of Venice’s most beautiful and familiar vistas is the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the great temple of a church that Palladio built there. Many artists have painted it, millions of tourists have photographed it, John Ruskin hated it. But no matter what you think about this church, can you really imagine Venice without it?

I've written about this church here but wanted to share this scene. This was one of those "right place, right time" photos; I'd spent all day exploring the maze in Castello and then ended up out on the Riva just as the sun was going down.

Another view in the day time. I'm still amazed at how many beautiful winter days there were in December.

A wooden church dedicated to San Vittore was built on this location in the 8th century; it was rebuilt in 947 by Venetian nobleman Moise Venier who rededicated it to his name saint, Moses (San Moise). This is one of several churches in Venice dedicated to Jewish Old Testament heroes who technically weren’t Christians at all (Moses, Job, Jeremiah, Samuel, Zachariah).

The church we see today was built in 1628 and its crazy over-the-top façade added in 1668. Public statues were more or less forbidden in Venice so families who wanted to immortalize themselves in stone could finance a church façade instead. Many of the scenes on this façade are connected to the lives of the Fini brothers, a “nouveau riche” Venetian family who had only recently bought their nobility from a cash-poor Republic that had started selling titles.

John Ruskin called it a “frightful façade.” W.D. Howells, American ambassador to Venice in the 19th century, described it as “in every way detestable.” Guilio Lorenzetti (author of Venice and Its Lagoon) more kindly called it “a confused, picturesque Baroque structure with superabundant decoration.” Hard to believe, but at one time there was even more junk on the front of this church – some sculptures fell off or were removed when they became dangerously loose.

And as if the church wasn’t bizarre enough – in May 1752 during a violent storm, the priest and his server were killed while celebrating Mass when a bolt of lightning came in through the roof and down through the metal cord of a hanging lamp.

Some call it a church, some an oratory – either way, San Gallo is no longer open for Mass but is used occasionally for art exhibits. I walked by this sweet little church many times before finally finding it open this past December.

The most interesting thing about this place is its connection to Doge (and Saint) Pietro Orseolo I, the only Venetian Doge who was ever canonized.

Pietro Orseolo was Doge for only two years in the 10th century, but he was a wise ruler who’d inherited a Republic on the verge of bankruptcy and a city center that had just been devastated by fire. He had to set up government in his own house while the Doge Palace was being rebuilt, and much of his own personal fortune went to rebuilding the palace and the Basilica di San Marco.

Sant’ Angelo is a very spacious campo in the sestiere of San Marco, and one reason it’s so large is because there used to be a parish church here, San Michele Arcangelo (dedicated to Archangel Michael). The church is gone but you can still find an oratory and a very cool vera da pozzo (wellhead).

The carvings on the wellhead are connected to the name of the oratory (Oratorio dell’ Annunziata) or oratory of the Annunciation. Archangel Gabriel is on one side of the well holding his lily, and Mary is on the other side, receiving the good news.

Oratory of the Annunciation

I’d read about this Renaissance church and seen a few photos of it, and I was so excited to finally see it in person. What a weird little church, tucked away in a small courtyard right behind the apse of the Basilica di San Marco. It mystifies me as to why they felt the need to build another church in this location!

San Teodoro was built in 1486 by Giorgio Spavento (an architect sometimes credited for the famous spiral staircase, Scala Contarini del Bovolo). The little church is behind San Marco, and its right side is attached to the back of the Doge’s Palace. The brick façade was originally covered with frescoes which are long gone, and the doorway is surrounded with some fine floral carvings. The mosaic above the door shows San Teodoro (St. Theodore) fighting the dragon; this mosaic was moved here from the demolished church of Santa Maria Nova.

In the 16th century, architect Jacopo Sansovino built a huge buttress to support San Marco; this thing runs right into the front of the little church. Embedded in the buttress is a fascinating collection of stone and marble fragments from various restorations of San Marco over the centuries. A stones of Venice collage.

In “Another Venice,” Jacopo Fasolo describes this little courtyard:

“The hotchpotch effect is a perfect example of the Venetian expression “andar per le fodere,” that is reaching hidden areas by following secret paths, thus heightening the visitor’s sense of discovery and expectation.” He speculates that this area was a secret passage for the doge and his entourage, perhaps for security reasons after a couple of doges were assassinated while on procession around the city. Perhaps the doge felt the need for a small and secret church too?

The Fasolo book is wonderful, by the way, full of info about lesser-known places along with nice watercolors by the author.

There’s so much to say about the church of San Salvador that it’s going to take several posts. I thought I’d start with the cloisters of the former monastery and also the campanile.

Don’t think I’m crazy if I tell you to visit the phone company when you’re in Venice. What a beautiful place. These Renaissance cloisters are right next door to the church; they were reconstructed in 1564 to replace earlier Gothic ones. The monastery was closed in 1810 and for some time was used as army barracks. Telecom Italia acquired the property after the First World War and then restored it in the 1980’s. Today it’s the home of Telecom Italia Future Centre which sometimes has exhibits, but there was nothing going on when I visited in November and I was the only one there. There’s a cool aerial view of the church and the cloisters on the Future Centre's website.

The first cloister has a beautiful pink marble vera da pozzo while the second has a white one.

The second cloister also has a view of the church’s campanile which isn't easy to find because of how densely built this part of Venice is. When San Salvador celebrated its Cinquecentenario in 2007, the church announced plans to open their bell tower to the public for climbing. I was psyched! So many towers in Venice but so few are open. Well, I asked the lady in the church about this, and she said that the project is stalled and she's not sure it will happen. It's no longer mentioned on the church's website either. I guess the scaffolding on the tower explains why.

The church of San Salvador has two paintings by Titian – one that I absolutely love and another that I’m not that crazy about. The painting on the high altar (The Transfiguration) is the one I don’t love – some art historians think it was badly restored and maybe that’s true; it looks a bit flat to me and the colors look strange. But no worries, because the other Titian is a mind-blower – The Annunciation (third altar on the right). Titian was over 70 years old when he painted this one. Mary is being approached by Archangel Gabriel, who looks particularly powerful and androgynous, but all the action is in that impressionistic burst of energy, angels, and light above them.

There’s another Titian Annunciation in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, painted almost thirty years earlier, and it’s really interesting to compare them - the San Rocco one (below) is gorgeous, but it’s so quiet and serene while the San Salvador one is explosive.

There’s an interesting mystery connected to the signature on the San Salvador painting. Titian signed his name and then wrote “fecit fecit” (he did it, he did it). Some scholars think that he was being grouchy and addressing critics who might think that the painting was unfinished or had been done by artists from his workshop and not by him. But Lorenzetti (Venice and its Lagoon) says that Titian signed it that way “to emphasize the miracle of his activity” and that makes more sense to me. I think he knew it was a great painting.

One of the eight San Magno churches and therefore one of the oldest in Venice, San Salvador is well worth a visit not only because of its great art collection but also because it’s a perfectly elegant space. The Renaissance church we see today is probably the third church that’s been on this location; legend has it that one of the earlier incarnations had an iron grille for a floor and you could see the water rushing by below. Today in front of the main altar, there’s a hole in the floor with a clear cover, but it’s dark down there and I couldn’t really see very much besides old stones.

The interior is gorgeous and clean with amazing multi-colored marble floors, some of the best church floors in Venice. I’ve already mentioned my favorite things….Titian’s Annunciation, the relics of San Teodoro, and the cloisters next door, but there’s much else to see, including several impressive funeral monuments for various Cardinals and Doges, and also one for Caterina Cornaro, the queen of Cyprus who gave her island to the Republic.

Pretty much every church you visit in Venice has someone in attendance; old guidebooks call them “sacristans” but today they are more like security guards in most cases. But San Salvador has several ladies who seem more like docents, and they love to talk about their church. One of the ladies told me that San Salvador is the second most important church in Venice after San Marco – a debatable claim but I admired her loyalty and love for the place.

Anyway, when you visit, ask one of the ladies if you can see the sacristy – it’s an incredibly beautiful room with 16th century frescoes of trees, flowers, and peacocks. A nice and surprising change of pace, like walking into a secret garden. These frescoes were whitewashed over when the French suppressed the monastery and have recently been uncovered and restored.

Titian's Transfiguration on the high altar. The altar to the right is where San Teodoro's relics are.~

When I was in Venice last November, I was happy to see that the façade of this formerly grungy former church had received a cleaning! There’s still some scaffolding around it and who knows what else is going on, but it looks much better now as you can see in the “after and before” photos below.

San Basso faces the Piazzetta dei Leoncini, just north of the Basilica di San Marco. This piazzetta used to be called Campo San Basso and for centuries, there was a vegetable market there. The name was changed to “dei Leoncini” when the two red marble lions were added in 1722.

Founded in 1076, San Basso is one of the most ancient churches in Venice. It burned down along with 22 other churches in 1105, then burned again in 1661 and was rebuilt in 1670 as we see it today. Longhena is sometimes credited with the design of the façade but there seems to be some doubt about that.

Along with many other churches, San Basso was closed and deconsecrated in 1810. It was privately owned for a while and then later in the 19th century, it became the property of San Marco which used it as a warehouse and restoration workshop, then as a museum for a while, and now uses part of it for people to check their big bags before they are allowed to visit the Basilica. It’s also used for Vivaldi concerts and lectures.

The interior looks mainly like a lecture hall, but there are a few traces of church decoration and a nice Madonna mosaic. Other fragments from the church are on display in the courtyard in front of the church of San Teodoro, behind the Basilica.

This is a deconsecrated but still active church, easy to find because of its proximity to the Accademia bridge and campo Santo Stefano. Founded in 1084 by Doge Vitale Falier who dedicated it to his name saint (Vidal is sometimes spelled Vitale).

This 2nd century saint was a wealthy man from Milan, married to St. Valeria, and their sons, Gervase and Protase, became saints too and have their own church in Venice (San Trovaso). For years, the clergy of San Vidal would lead an annual procession over to Dorsoduro to visit the sons’ church, keeping it all in the family I guess. The most famous church dedicated to this Italian saint is the basilica in Ravenna.

Venice's church of San Vidal was rebuilt in the 17th century, and Canaletto’s painting, The Stonemason’s Yard, shows the reconstruction in progress. The church was closed along with so many others after the fall of the Republic.

There’s a sweet little note in Lorenzetti’s guide book (Venice and Its Lagoon) published in the early 20th century. He notes that San Vidal is closed but says that if you want to visit it, you can ask the nearby flower seller for a key. Simpler times in Venice…

In his 1985 book, Vidal in Venice, Gore Vidal reported that dozens of cats lived in the campo next to this church, supported by local ladies and doing well. At that time, the church was an art gallery.

Well, the cats are gone, alas, and today, the church hosts concerts by Interpreti Veneziani and has recently joined the Chorus Pass organization and is now the headquarters for its cultural activities.

This church is almost always open and is worth stopping in since there are several nice paintings inside, including an Annunciation by Sebastiano Ricci and a Guardian Angel with Saints by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.

The best is over the main altar, a painting of San Vidal on horseback by Carpaccio (I say, never pass up an opportunity to see a Carpaccio!). Hugh Honour (Companion Guide to Venice) says that he’s sure that Carpaccio used the San Marco horses as models for the horse in this painting.

This is such a pretty campanile. The San Vidal bell tower is older than the rebuilt church, or at least its foundations are. This tower was damaged by fire in 1105, by earthquake in 1347, restored again in 1680, and then again in 2000.

Over the door is a 15th century relief in tondo of St. Gregory with a dove, a really nice piece of public art.

Here it is, visible from the Grand Canal~

The Armenian church is one of the most mysterious in Venice. This little church is so embedded in the urban fabric, who knows what it even looks like? The entrance is within a sotoportego, and you can get only glimpses of the building itself when you walk around the neighborhood. I had to walk a long way away from the entrance to get this photo of the campanile!

From The World of Venice by Jan Morris:

“It is a strange little building. Its campanile, now silent, is so surrounded by tall buildings and chimneys that you can hardly see it; its façade is unobtrusively hidden away in a row of houses, and only the cross on the door shows that it is a church at all. Inside it is shabby but brightly decorated, and the floor of the vestibule is covered with memorial slabs, extolling the virtues of eminent Venetian Armenians – “He lived as a Lion…” says one, “Died as a swan and will rise as a Phoenix.”

Even though it's hidden, it's not that hard to find thanks to these yellow signs in both Italian and Armenian. Follow the arrow, find the sotoportego, and then you'll find the entrance to the church (though you won't find it open unless you're very lucky).

By the 12th century, the Armenian community was established in Venice, merchants and scholars who had fled the Turkish invasion of their homeland. They became one of the Venetian Republic’s wealthiest foreign communities and remain active today. The merchants had a warehouse in this part of sestiere San Marco, and in 1496 were given permission to build a church. It was rebuilt in 1682-8 and the campanile added then.

The Armenian religious order has a monastery and another church on the lagoon island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni. Strangely, Napoleon left the Armenians alone when he was on his church-closing rampage because of the important scholarly and scientific work being done by the Armenian monks.

Thanks so much to Bert for sending these photos and allowing me to post them here. Bert is the only person I know who has found the Armenian church open! He said that some restoration work was going on, and he was able to look around for a bit and take a couple of photos. He didn't know it at the time, but the memorial slab below is the same one that Jan Morris described in her book and that I quoted in my post on this church.

This week on Venice Daily Photo, Bert has been sharing some wonderful photos of Palazzo Barbaro. Check them out!

In 2009, I wrote about the little pink Oratory of the Annunciation (Oratorio dell’ Annunziata) in campo Sant' Angelo in Venice. At that time, I'd walked by this place many times but it was always closed. I found it open in 2010 and was able to go inside to see the interior. It's a sweet little place, and I'm happy to share some photos of it.

It has a wooden beamed ceiling and some stained glass windows. Over the altar is a painting of the Annunciation by Antonio Triva (1626-1699).

This statue of Sant' Antonio di Padova dates back to 1800.

The stained glass windows were casting some colorful reflections.

Not only was the place open, but they had a brochure from which I learned that the oratory has another name (Chiesa Sant'Angelo degli Zoppi). "Zoppi" means "lame" and at one time, this little church was connected to a confraternity in Venice that took care of invalids and disabled sailors, and also provided dowries for their daughters. It was founded in the 10th century and rebuilt in 1700.

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