10 great Venetian churches
A major exhibition of Bellini’s work has just opened at the National Gallery in London — a rare chance to get to know his paintings in a different context, and see how his work changed over time.
His work marked a turning point in Venetian art and introduced a golden age of Titian and Giorgione, Tintoretto and Veronese. Many key works by these artists are still in the churches for which they were painted. They don’t travel to exhibitions, but if you go to Venice you can see them in situ, often at little or no cost and nearly always in an atmosphere far removed from the busy galleries of the Accademia, say.
Here is a selection of 10 Venice churches where you can find great paintings in their original locations. Admission is (normally) free unless stated otherwise. A Chorus Pass (chorusvenezia.org/en) costs à12 and gives free admission to 18 churches that charge, including the Frari, San Sebastiano and Santa Maria dei Miracoli, listed below.
1
SAN ZACCARIA
As well as the Bellini, there is an early Tintoretto — The Birth of John the Baptist —a Madonna and Saints attributed to Palma Vecchio, and Tiepolo’s later Flight into Egypt.
2
THE FRARI
The main altar of the Frari, one of the biggest churches in Venice, is dominated by Titian’s great Assumption, and there is a second seminal painting by him over the Pesaro altar in the nave. But hidden away in the quiet of the sacristy is one of Bellini’s greatest and most serene triptychs — a Madonna and Child of sculptural quality flanked, as in San Zaccaria, by four saints. The gilded frame may have been designed by the artist. Admission à3. ALTAR PIECE Titian’s "Assumption" in the Frari.
3 MADONNA DELL’ORTO
The lovely red-brick, marble-trimmed Gothic façade gives on to a small square on the outer edges of the district of Cannaregio. It was Tintoretto’s parish church: he is buried in one of the chapels, and several of his most important works hang here, including a Last Judgment and a Golden Calf in the choir. In the first chapel on the left, there should be a Bellini Madonna above the altar. But it was stolen in 1993 and has never been recovered — a sad reminder of the perils faced by art outside the high security of museums.
4
SAN SEBASTIANO
On the other side of the city, San Sebastiano is known to all universally as Veronese’s church. He created most of the frescoes, ceiling paintings and altarpieces — a virtuoso display of visual storytelling and trompe l’oeil effects, which fill the building with life and colour. Admission: à3.
5
SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE
One of Palladio’s great Venetian churches, San Giorgio stands on its own island across the lagoon from St Mark’s. It has a fine collection of mannerist paintings, including two powerful late canvases by Tintoretto — The Last Supper and The Fall of Manna — which were made
for the presbytery and have hung there for well over 400 years.
6
SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA On the northern edge of Castello, this Franciscan church is also home to a Bellini altarpiece, Madonna and Child with Four Saints and a Donor.
This is not the church Bellini would have known — it was rebuilt a few decades after his death by Jacopo Sansovino and then by Palladio (who designed the façade) — but the work did not affect the setting of his altarpiece, hidden in a chapel next to a stunning garden cloister.
The church is also home to Veronese’s first Venetian commission, and to a great series of sculpted reliefs by Pietro Lombardo.
7
SAN GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO
San Giovanni Crisostomo is around the corner from the Rialto bridge, right next to one of the busiest tourist routes in Venice, yet hardly any of them venture through the door. They are missing two of the city’s greatest altarpieces — one of San Giovanni Crisostomo by Sebastiano del Piombo, and a late Bellini — depicting Saints Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse — in a chapel on the south side of the church. The lighting here is remarkable, almost mystical in effect as it filters across the painting and into the chapel from the side windows.
8
SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO
Also known as Zanipolo and the great rival to the Frari, this spectacular Gothic church lost several masterpieces in a fire in the 19th century, but it still has works by Veronese, Vivarini and Lorenzo Lotto, and a polyptych by Bellini depicting St Vincent Ferrer, which is still in its original frame. Admission à2.50.
9
BASILICA SAN MARCO Unless you attend a service, this is one church in Venice where there is no escape from the madding crowds. But even though you will probably have to shuffle along a guided route in a line of other tourists, and the natural light is drowned out by spotlights, it’s impossible not to be dazzled by the fields of gold above your head — a panorama of 8,000m² of glittering mosaics. The most ancient are approaching 1,000 years old.
10
SANTA MARIA DEI MIRACOLI
This church is unique in Venice because it was built to house a particular painting — Nicolò di Pietro’s Madonna of 1409 — which, it is said, miraculously started to weep in about 1480. The Lombardi brothers were commissioned to build this exquisite jewel box of a church, faced inside and out with decorative marble. Today it completely outshines the painting it was made for. Admission: à3.
Mantegna and Bellini continues at the National Gallery in London
(nationalgallery.org.uk) until January 27, 2019. Admission from à13.50 (if booked online).