The church of San Barnaba is a religious building in the city of Venice located in the campo of the same name, in the Dorsoduro district, not far from Ca' Rezzonico and the Pugni bridge.
Tradition holds that the church was founded in 936 by the Adorni
family. In reality, it seems that the current building developed on a
previous church of San Lorenzo dating back to the beginning of the 9th
century. It is not clear when it became a parish church: probably
shortly after its foundation or, perhaps, in the 11th century, the
period in which the ecclesiastical organization of the city was
outlined. It was a branch of Santa Maria Zobenigo.
Due to the
numerous fires, it underwent several renovations until the consecration
on 6 December 1350, by the bishop of Suda under license from the bishop
of Castello Nicolò Morosini. The building then took on its current
appearance in 1779, when the renovation work begun in 1749 based on a
project by Lorenzo Boschetti modeled on the church of the Gesuati by his
master Massari was completed.
The parish was administered by a
chapter comprising two titular priests, a deacon and a subdeacon. Over
time, however, the administration was entrusted to a single parish
priest, sometimes assisted by a sacristan.
In 1810, in full
Napoleonic rule, the parish was suppressed and its territory was annexed
to the new parish of the Carmins of which the church became its branch.
In the late twentieth century it was converted into a permanent
exhibition space dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci's machines.
The facade, erected in 1749, is in a classical style with tall
columns in the Corinthian style and a tympanum designed by Lorenzo
Boschetti.
The interior has a single nave structure, with six
side altars, three on the right and three on the left, all decorated
with paintings except one, and a square presbytery.
The pictorial
works on the side altars are:
First altar on the right: Birth of the
Virgin, altarpiece made by Antonio Foler at the end of the 16th century.
Second altar on the right: Saints Bernardino, Chiara and Margherita da
Cortona, a 16th-century panel painting originally housed in the
Riformati church in Conegliano Veneto and attributed to Francesco
Beccaruzzi.
Third altar on the right: Sant'Antonio di Padova, XVIII
century altarpiece by Giuseppe De Gobbis.
First altar on the left:
Holy Family, attributed to Paolo Veronese.
Second altar on the left:
Saints Jacopo, Francesco and Antonio Abate, early 16th century
altarpiece in the style of the school of Giorgione attributed to the
Brescian artists Giovanni and Bernardo d'Asola, also from the Riformati
church in Conegliano Veneto. The altarpiece is completed by a lunette
representing the Pietà between Saints Joseph and Nicodemus, which was
probably part of a different painting.
On the side walls of the
presbytery there are two paintings by Jacopo Palma il Giovane, the Last
Supper and the Ascent to Calvary, while above the main altar there is an
altarpiece depicting San Barnaba and saints by the Titian school and of
uncertain attribution between Damiano Mazza and Dario Varotari the
Elder.
On the ceiling there are two large frescoes both dating
back to the 18th century and attributed to Costantino Cedini: The Faith,
on the vault above the main altar, and the Glory of Saint Barnabas on
the ceiling of the nave.
Completing the complex, set far back and
detached from the church, is the Romanesque-style brick bell tower, with
a square belfry decorated with a three-mullioned window on each side and
surmounted by a conical spire. The structure dates back to the 11th
century and culminates in a conical spire, surrounded by four small
spiers, which was completed two hundred years later.
Filmography
In the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the church (exteriors
only) was used to set an imaginary library (the interiors were actually
filmed on a studio). Campo San Barnaba in front of the church was used
to shoot the scene of the film in which the protagonist, after having
penetrated the (non-existent) underground, comes out of a manhole in the
center of the campo.