We woke to better weather, and in fact there was little or no rain during the day and quite a bit of sun, though it was still cold in the shade. It seemed sensible to stress my back as little as possible, so the plan was to take as many boats as possible, do as little walking as possible, and go to see some churches as you can sit down there in between looking at the paintings and sculptures.
We began by walking to the nearest vaporetto stop, San Pietro. We walked past the church of San Pietro, which was the site of one of the earliest churches in Venice, probably established in the 7th century. The existing church dates to the mid 16th century and was the original cathedral of Venice until 1807. It’s built to a Palladian design and has a free standing campanile.
We intend to visit the church later, so I won’t say any more about it now.
We caught a boat that took us round past Arsenale, giving us views of the Doge’s palace and the Campanile of San Marco.
From there we passed into the Giudecca canal and round to the railway station. Here we changed to the number 1 boat, intending to travel a few stops down to the church of San Stae.
San Stae is a striking baroque church, which appears to be undergoing some restoration at present, and was unfortunately closed. There was no information displayed on the church, but the internet helpfully told me that it was only open a few days a week, the next time being apparently Sunday afternoon. So we can try again then! We took the boat back to the railway station so as to sit down to have something to eat, then we retraced our steps back down the Giudecca canal to the Redentore church. This is the Giudecca’s principal monument, having been built by Palladio. It was built in thanksgiving for the end of a plague in 1576, and every year, the Feast of the Redeemer is celebrated here in July.
This church really needs to be photographed from the water but I was on the wrong side of a rather crowded boat, and the Giudecca was very choppy anyway, so this was the best I could manage. It had to be photographed from one side as I don’t walk on water!
The interior is more austere than many venetian churches, having apparently been a design deliberately chosen by Palladio to be humble.
The altar is rather baroque though.
I didn’t particularly like many of the paintings, which were mostly, I thought, in need of cleaning. The illustrations in the church leaflet showed the paintings to better advantage, especially a Resurrection of Christ by Bassano, and Christ’s Ascension, attributed to Tintoretto’s workshop; these were both so dark as to be almost impossible to photograph. I preferred one of the lunettes above the entrance by somebody called Pietro Muttoni, showing a Madonna and Baby Jesus and St Felix.
We caught a boat across to the other side of the Giudecca to visit the Gesuati church. This was built by the Dominicans who began work in 1726 when the Gesuati order was suppressed. The facade is quite stately, reflecting the facade of the Redentore opposite.
The interior is remarkable for the frescoed ceiling by Tiepolo, which I did not even attempt to photograph. I would have needed to lie on the floor in the middle of the aisle, and I did not think this would meet with the approval of the very stern lady who took our tickets, as well as being rather in the way of other visitors.
The interior is rather more baroque than that of the Redentore, and not so much to my taste.
I think the roundel you can see above and behind the altar is also by Tiepolo, but I couldn’t get close to it as that part of the church was roped off.
This church is full of sculptures and bas reliefs, many by Gian Maria Morlaiter, another artist of who I had never heard. Some of the paintings here were also rather dark, but there is a Crucifixion by Tintoretto which I think must have recently been cleaned.
I also admired a sculpture of the Madonna of the Rosary by Antonio Bosa, which gives church the alternative name, Santa Maria del Rosario.
Then we got back onto the number 2 boat and retraced our steps again past the railway station and down the grand canal. I would have liked to photograph the Rialto bridge, but the boat was far too crowded for that, we would have needed to get off and I was mindful of the need to take care of my back. We changed at the Academia to the number 1 boat so we could get off at Arsenale and walk back to the flat, which takes around 15 minutes. We walked up the Via Garibaldi, a broad street which was created by Napoleon in 1808 by filling in a canal. The first house on the right of the street was the home of John Cabot and his son Sebastian, navigators who in 1497 ‘discovered’ what they though was the coast of China.
It was actually the coast of Newfoundland.
The plaque under the lion of St Mark names them, and the lower plaque, which is under the title ‘Canada’, points out that they were then in the service of the English king Henry 7th.
By the time we had walked home, my back was quite tired and I was glad to lie down and drink a nice cup of tea!
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