Last Day

Thursday May 18th 2023

This being our last day, we made an early start so as to get into St Marks Basilica. Not early enough! The queues were enormous! I think the only thing to do is to book tickets well ahead, so I’ll bear it in mind for our next trip here. And I do mean book well ahead. The first available very expensive ticket to book with audio guide was next Wednesday. The first available ordinary ticket to book is June 1st! So I suppose we should have booked before we came. It’s either that or queue for hours.

Anyway, we made our way back to the waterside to get a boat up the Grand Canal to go to the Frari - full name Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, but generally just referred to as the Frari. We walked up from the boat dock, only to be told it wasn’t open until 1pm! There was a service inside. So we went round some of the local shops for some retail therapy, and then visited the nearby Scuola Grande di San Rocco to see the Tintorettos. ‘Scuola’ is the Venetian term for a confraternity; most non-noble Venetian men belonged to one, they were charitable institutions. San Rocco was set up as a charitable institution for the sick, financed largely by wealthy Venetians who hoped San Rocco (St Roch), patron saint of contagious diseases, would save them from the plague. The building began in 1515. In 1564, a competition was held to select to select an artist to paint one of the central ceiling panels, and Tintoretto won. Over the next 23 years, he decorated the entire building, on several floors.

The painting with which he won the competition, St Roch in Glory, is a bit dark and hard to photograph, and you can probably see why when you see the ground floor room.

This is the ground floor hall, which has a wooden ceiling. Some of the paintings were so poorly lit they were very hard to photograph, but I liked this one

It’s The Flight into Egypt, as you can probably see. 

You climb a monumental staircase to the upper floor, which has a coffered ceiling with many more biblical paintings, in addition to the ones around the walls. You can take a mirror to look more closely at the ceiling ones.

I seemed to spend a lot of time in this room as there were chairs which meant I wasn’t quite so exhausted looking at the paintings. The chairs were actually placed there for a concert but I was very grateful for them. 

This is one of those I particularly liked, The Adoration of the Shepherds

One of the huge ceiling paintings, of The Crucifixion, was undergoing restoration so it was no longer on the ceiling and was much easier to photograph.

I managed to cut out most of the bits of scaffolding at the back, and some of the wall underneath it.  That partly explains why it’s smaller than my other photos. I had to stand well back to photograph it because it’s so wide, it was difficult to get it all in.

Lunch and the Frari came next. The name Frari is a corruption of ‘frati’, meaning brothers because the first church was built by Franciscan friars, starting in 1250. It was replaced with a larger building completed in the mid 15th century. The interior is striking for its size, but unaccountably, I was so overcome I didn’t photograph it. What I did photograph are 3 masterpieces. This is the huge painting by Titian, over the altar.

It’s the one that really gives the church part of its name, Santa Maria Gloriosa. It’s the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It’s absolutely huge, we watched a short film about its restoration and I think it was described as the largest panel painting in the world. It certainly dominates the church.

The next one is a Bellini Madonna and Child.

 It’s a lot wider than shown in this photo, I took two photos and this is the one I prefer. The actual painting is quite wide because the central figure is flanked by 2 saints in side panels, but I found the centre one so beautiful I stood closer to get more detail in the photo and didn’t bother about the saints.

The last one is by Titian. It’s called Madonna de Ca’Pesaro.

It’s described in one of the guides as showing his mastery of light and colour, with which I’d agree. I think it’s also been cleaned recently. I found it surprising, watching the film about the restoration of the big panel, how much dust there was on the surface. I don’t suppose the paintings get dusted - perhaps it would damage them - and it’s no wonder they are so dirty.

The other remarkable features of this huge church are two enormous memorials, one to Canova, which looks like an Egyptian pyramid and is nearly as big, and this one to Titian. The statues are life size, so it’s huge.

After this, we made our way back to the boat and headed for the Arsenale, because I wanted to have another go at the Scuola we failed to find yesterday. It wasn’t surprising we didn’t find it yesterday. Apple Maps directed us to a canal to the west of the canal on which it is situated, and to the west side of the wrong canal. It’s actually on the east side of a different canal! 

The Scuola is called the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. From Venice’s earliest days, trade links were forged with Schiavonia (Dalmatia) opposite Venice across the Adriatic. By 1420, Venetian rule was established there and many of the Schiavoni people came to live in Venice. By the mid 15th century the colony had grown so large the State gave them permission to form their own confraternity, which was established in 1451. The building was decorated by Carpaccio between 1502 and 1508, and shows scenes from the lives of favourite saints of the Schiavoni. 

The photo above gives the general view. It’s a wooden panelled room, quite small in contrast to the other places we have seen today, with a wooden ceiling and wooden panelled walls. That side of the room shows Carpaccio’s paintings of St George. The one you can see shows him having subdued the dragon, which is cowering and looking quite pathetic and rather sweet. This was not the case when he fought it!

This was the dragon before being subdued, looking much more fierce. Though I have to say it doesn’t appear to be very big.

Another favourite saint is St Jerome, who was rather more elderly that St George. One of the things for which he was known was for having a pet lion. This is the picture of St Jerome Leading  the Tamed Lion to the Nunnery.

I’m not at all sure exactly why he was taking the lion to the nunnery. The nuns certainly don’t look too happy about it!

Up the stairs is a second room, even more decorated, with a coffered and painted ceiling. Over the altar is a polychrome and gilt bas-relief of St George killing the dragon.

This dragon looks a little bit bigger and more threatening, I think. But I had always supposed dragons were enormous, rather than being the size of big dogs.

Paul didn’t think he could stand much more religion, so we left and walked back towards the flat. On the way, we stopped in the Via Garibaldi to buy ice cream, and went into the little adjoining park to sit on a bench to eat it. The main path through the park, which goes back to the waterside, is called Viale Giuseppe Garibaldi and this is Garibaldi’s statue. You might notice it is also associated with the lion of St Mark.

The statue is surrounded by a railing and moat. You can see a little of both to the lower left of the photo. The water is very clear, and is absolutely full of terrapins. Some were swimming about and lots of them were sitting sunning themselves on the rocks at the foot of the statue. You can see them in the bottom left corner of the photo.

Then it was back to the flat to drink tea and rest. Packing comes next, then early bed for a very early alarm!