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Church of San Zaccaria

Posted by
Randolph (Toronto, Canada) on 7 December 2018 in Architecture and Portfolio.

A 15th-century former monastic church in central Venice, Italy. It is a large edifice, located in the Campo San Zaccaria, just off the waterfront to the southeast of Piazza San Marco and St Mark's Basilica. It is dedicated to St. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.

The first church on the site was founded by Doge Giustiniano Participazio in the early 9th century to house the body of the saint to which it is dedicated, a gift of the Byzantine Emperor Leo V the Armenian, which it contains under the second altar on the right. The remains of various doges are buried in the crypt of the church. The original church was rebuilt in the 1170s (when the present campanile was built) and was replaced by a Gothic church in the 15th century. The remains of this building still stand, as the present church was built beside and not over it.

The present church was built between 1458 and 1515. Antonio Gambello was the original architect, who started the building in the Gothic style, but the upper part of the facade with its arched windows and its columns, and the upper parts of the interior were completed by Mauro Codussi in early Renaissance style seventy years later. The facade is a harmonious Venetian mixture of late-Gothic and Renaissance styles.

The interior of the church has an apse surrounded by an ambulatory lit by tall Gothic windows, a typical feature of Northern European church architecture which is unique in Venice. Nearly every wall is covered with paintings by 17th and 18th century artists. The church houses one of the most famous work by Giovanni Bellini, the San Zaccaria Altarpiece. The walls of the aisles and of the chapels host paintings by other artists including Andrea del Castagno, Palma Vecchio, Tintoretto, Giuseppe Porta, Palma il Giovane, Antonio Vassilacchi, Anthony van Dyck, Andrea Celesti, Antonio Zanchi, Antonio Balestra, Angelo Trevisani and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo.

The artist Alessandro Vittoria is buried in the church, his tomb marked by a self-portrait bust.

The organ of the church was built by Gaetano Callido in 1790.

SONY DSC-RX100M3 1/30 second F/1.8 ISO 500 24 mm (35mm equiv.)
 

SONY DSC-RX100M3
1/30 second
F/1.8
ISO 500
24 mm (35mm equiv.)