Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santi Giovanni e Paolo

Facade       Side

The Santa Maria dei Miracoli was restored in 1997 and counts as one of Pietro Lombardo’s masterpieces. He was a sculptor who managed a thriving workplace in fifteenth century Venice. The exterior of the church is purely renaissance by design, incorporating classic elements.

Saint      Sea creatures and a skull

“A precious jewel box of a building, the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli was erected by local citizens to house a miracle-working image of the Madonna. The exterior revetment, composed of carefully balanced rectangles, arches, and circles, evokes the splendour of Venice’s most important civic church, St Mark’s. Porphyry placed to either side of the doorway and fashioned into cruciform patterns and decorative roundels higher up on the façade confirm the church’s high status, as does the use of the lavish Corinthian and Ionic orders, playfully rendered and positioned without regard to classical rules that expected the Corinthian, not the Ionic order, to occupy the upper story. Carvings of griffins and sea creatures mingle equally freely with busts of saints and angels.” Cited from Web Gallery of Art

The facade is divided into two orders, crowned with an architrave. Friezes and multi-coloured marble are incorporated into geometric shapes that decorate the outside of the building. This marble splendour carries on to the interior, the choir is decorated with sculpted figures in the balustrades. All of this to worship the high altar with a Madonna, painted by Pietro Paradisi (1409). Originally, the painting of the Madonna was meant to be attached to the wall of a residential home, but after the attribution of various miracles to the artwork in 1480, this led to a number of tithes that were to pay for the construction of a church. Pietro Lombardo thus was commissioned with building a church for the Madonna. He constructed a honey-coloured church, often compared with a jewellery box. A moat was dug out to protect to miraculous painting.

Santi Giovanni e Paolo

We return to one of the most important churches in the city, the S. Giovanni e Paolo. In front of the church we see an equestrian statue, Colleoni, by Andrea del Verrocchio (1483-1485).

Santi Giovanni e Paolo nave      Apse exterior

The church was constructed according to the basilica model, with four chapels in the choir. The highly placed windows give the choir a lot of light intensity. The facade was never completed, the entrance portal is flanked by six Greek pillars with byzantine embossing in a composition by sculptor Bartolomeo Bon. The facade has three (tomb of Marino Contarini) of the twenty-five Doge graves, which make this church a worthwhile visit.

Pietro and Tullio Lombardo
‘Burial monument Doge Pietro Mocenigo’

From the 15th century, the Santi Giovanni e Paolo was the place where Doges had themselves buried, so it’s hardly surprising that these burial monuments first served to glorify those who had died, instead of filling a religious role like we’d expect in a church. Based on these graves, we can have a closer, admiring look at burial art and the traditions involved in setting up a burial monument. Another artist who was heavily involved with this church was Pietro Lombardo, during the last quarter of the fifteenth century he produced four burial monuments along with his sons Antonio and Tullio. The nudes depicted by Tullio on the sides of his burial monument were later replaced by properly dressed saints, namely St. Catherina and Mary Magdalene (Wikipedia: Monuments). 

Mary

Bellini’s inaugural public commission was the creation of the polyptych of St Vincent Ferrer, skillfully executed for the dedicated altar of the saint within the Venetian basilica of St John and St Paul. The composition consists of a total of nine panels, organized into three distinct sections. Above, there is a depiction of the Pietà with the Virgin, accompanied by the Angel of the Annunciation on either side. In the central section, the titular saint is portrayed, flanked by St Christopher and St Sebastian. Finally, the predella showcases five miracles attributed to the saint. The painting was once adorned with a lost lunette at its top.