The church of Santa Maria Mater Domini is a Catholic religious building in the city of Venice, located in the Santa Croce district.
According to the chronicles, it was built by the Zane and Cappello
families in 960 and from the outset assigned to the adjacent monastery
of Santa Cristina. Originally the church too would have had this title,
however no document supports the tradition; the dedication to the Mother
of God, on the other hand, is attested since 1128.
As evidenced
by an apostolic letter from Pope Clement III, already in 1188 it was
officiated by priests as a parish church affiliated to the cathedral of
San Pietro di Castello. It was also collegiate, with a chapter of canons
consisting of a titled priest, a deacon and a subdeacon.
Rebuilt
twice, after the fires of 1105 and 1149, it maintained its
Veneto-Byzantine style forms until it was demolished in 1503, because it
was unsafe, and rebuilt. According to recent critics, it was designed
(at least for the facade) by Mauro Codussi, but it has also been
attributed to Jacopo Sansovino, Pietro Lombardo, Giovanni Buora and
others. In 1524 the altars were completed and on 25 July 1540 it was
consecrated by the bishop of Sebenico Giovanni Lucio Stafileo.
In
1807, during the Napoleonic suppressions, it was reduced to a branch of
the parish of San Stae. After moving to San Cassiano in 1810, in 1952
she again became vicar of San Stae. In 1970 it returned to San Cassiano
as a subsidiary church.
Santa Maria Mater Domini does not overlook the campo of the same name
but on the calle further to the right of the main axis. The Istrian
stone facade surmounted by a tympanum on a smooth wall and supported by
two volute wings is of Tuscan inspiration.
The plan is a Greek
cross with a dome at the intersection between the transept and the
central nave, with an appearance very similar to the churches of San
Felice and San Giovanni Crisostomo. The four side chapels are delimited
pillars on which large arches are set. At the end of the very elongated
presbytery is the semicircular apse and at the sides there are two other
niche chapels.
On the first altar on the right, of the Trevisans,
inside a perspective structure are the statues of Saints Peter, Paul and
Andrew, works by Lorenzo Bregno, except the last one by Antonio Minello.
On the second altar is the altarpiece of the Martyrdom of Santa
Cristina, painted by Vincenzo Catena. In the right transept, above the
side door, we find the Last Supper by Bonifacio de' Pitati. In the
chapel to the right of the main one is an altar with frontal and statue
sculpted by Bregno, on the altar in the presbytery the Madonna and
Child, a colored stucco of the Tuscan school of the 15th century, while
in the left chapel we have again an altar by Bregno from the important
architectural structure with the statues of Saints Mark and John. In the
left transept, the large canvas by Tintoretto, Invention of the Cross,
surmounts a praying Madonna, a gilded marble bas-relief from the 13th
century. In the two chapels on the left we have the altar of Verigine,
on the Sansovino model, and then, on the altar of the Contarinis, the
Transfiguration by Francesco Bissolo.
The bell tower was rebuilt
in 1743: the previous sixteenth-century one had collapsed three years
earlier.