The church of Santa Marta is a sacred building in Venice, located in the Dorsoduro district, near a parking lot in the port area, the only place in the city accessible to cars other than Piazzale Roma. Today the church is deconsecrated.
The church of Santa Marta was built in the fourteenth century on what
was the westernmost beach of the lagoon city, in close connection with
the parish of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli.
According to the sources,
the foundation of the church and of the adjoining female monastery is
due to the piety and generosity of the noble patrician family of the
Salamons, whose eldest member had the privilege of installing the mother
abbess after the election: she, in day dedicated to the titular saint,
she gave the aforementioned family a silk rose, as a symbolic tribute
for the Salamon patronage of the monastery.
In modernity it
underwent deconsecration and a long decline. In the twentieth century,
nothing remained of the original structure of the area, due to the
organization of the structures of the new port and the subsequent
construction of the car terminal in Piazzale Roma and the maritime
station. The church, deteriorated (for warehouse use, etc.) and
incorporated into modern structures and parking lots, survived the
radical nature of the changes, benefiting in the 2000s from a total
restoration with conversion, which made it a place for conferences and
exhibitions.
The gabled façade is opened only by the small rectangular portal and
appears unadorned, with the brick surface.
The right side, facing a
parking lot, is the site of a second portal in a stone frame and a
lancet window with pointed arches. Behind, centrally, there are two
good-sized ogival single-lancet windows.
Internally, the center
of the large single nave (stripped of any sign of the sacredness of the
ancient temple) has been filled by a wooden structure that houses seats,
adapting the venue to a center that can be used to hold conferences and
cultural events.
The ceiling is in wooden trusses.