Thursday May 23rd

We seem to have had another late start this morning, as Paul had a lot of email to answer. We had decided to see some local churches this morning, and eventually set off to catch a vaporetto; I decided that the only way to deal with my problem back is to walk about a bit less, so we bought a 7 day travel pass and will hop on and off whenever is convenient. It won’t be any quicker than walking, but it will save my back.

We went one stop, then it was a fairly short walk to the church of Madonna dell’Orto, a brick built church with an onion dome that, in a novel by Donna Leon, reminds her protagonist of a panettone. 

I have a slightly better photo of the church, but it doesn’t show the onion dome.

The original church dates to 1350, and during its building a statue was discovered in a nearby orchard (Orto). It had been placed there after it was rejected by the Prior of Santa Maria Formosa, and it then began to get a reputation for glowing and working miracles. So the statue was bought and placed in this church, in 1377, hence the church became know as  Madonna dell’Orto. I photographed the statue, but it’s quite ugly in my opinion, so I won’t post it here.

Inside, rows of columns of striped Turkish marble separate the nave from the aisles. There is a flat timber ceiling.

This was the parish church of Jacopo Tintoretto, he lived nearby, and there are 11 paintings by him inside. The biggest are absolutely huge, and flank the altar. They are really hard to photograph, as you can’t get to the front of them, you have to look at them from the side and they are very dark. The one on the left of the altar, The Adoration of the Golden Calf, is said to feature portraits of Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto himself amongst the worshippers of the golden calf. The one on the right, The Last Judgment, is so threatening that it supposedly caused John Ruskin’s wife Effie to run out of the church. It is now so dark and hard to see that I couldn’t really make it out at all. The Presentation of the Virgin above the door to a chapel is a bit more cheery, and was apparently painted in an attempt to outdo Titian’s painting of the same name. Apparently, Titian and Tintoretto did not get on!

There is a painting by Titian in one of the side chapels, Tobias and the Angel

I had to take it from one side to escape the reflections from a nearby window.

The church used to house another famous painting, this one by Giovanni Bellini, but it was stolen (for the third time) in 1993, so now there is just a colour photgraph of it instead.

Outside the church there is a charming cloister which currently houses sculptures as one of the Biennale exhibitions.

After this we returned to the vaporetto stop and caught another boat for just one stop; then it was another short walk to Sant’Alvise, a church with a very plain exterior and a surprising inside. The original church was built in 1388, originally in wood, but rebuilt in stone in 1430. The interior decoration dates fron the 1600s, and the most amazing thing is the ceiling which is entirely covered in fresco depicting the heavens and full of hovering cherubs. 

I had to lie down on the of the pews to view it. There are three paintings by Tiepolo, all in very awkward places so photographs are difficult. Two are early and rather dark, but the third, Ascent to Calvary, which is closer to the altar is very dramatic.

After we had looked at all the paintings in the church, we walked along little alleyways and over a number of the humped bridges over canals to reach the old Jewish Ghetto.

Jews were originally confined to the Ghetto in 1516; it was cut off from the rest of Venice by canals and had 2 gates which were guarded. By days they were allowed out to work but had to return every night. As the population expanded the buildings rose vertically, and spread into neighbouring areas in 1541 and again in 1633, by which time there were over 5000 Jews. 

The buildings surround this charming square, and there are a few Jewish shops and a café. There are only 500 Jews in Venice today, and apparently only 30 of them live in the ghetto.

By then it was getting late so we made our way back to the vaporetto stop and took one round to the railway station. Here we found a nice café for a late lunch, before catching another vaporetto right down the Grand Canal to its entrance to visit Santa Maria della Salute, a Baroque church which is one of the most imposing landmarks of Venice.

There was originally a monastery on this site, but it was demolished to build this huge church to celebrate the end of the great plague of 1630 - 31. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary who was thought to have helped to save the Venetians.

The grandest facade faces onto the Grand Canal, with huge buttresses supporting the dome. The interior is rather more plain, an octagonal space with 6 radiating chapels. 

There are a number of paintings by Titian, all now in the sacristy, but the sacristy had closed early so we were not able to see them. 

The main altar has a Byzantine icon of the Virgin said to have been painted by Saint Luke and to have worked miracles. It’s actually from the 12th or 13th century, and was brought to Venice from Crete in 1669 when the Crete fell to the Ottomans.

By the time we had seen all this it was quite late, so we made our way back to base via a supermarket for supplies for supper.