The basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, commonly known only
as the Frari, is the largest of the churches in Venice and received the
title of minor basilica from Pope Pius XI in 1926. It is located in the
homonymous Campo dei Frari, in the San Polo district, and is dedicated
to the Assumption of Mary.
The plan is a Latin cross, and the
style is Venetian Gothic in terracotta and Istrian stone. It has three
naves with pointed arches resting on six columns on each side. It
measures 102 meters in length, 48 meters in the transept and is 28
meters high; it has 17 monumental altars and many works of art are kept
inside, including two paintings by Titian. It also houses the tombs and
funerary monuments of numerous personalities linked to Venice, including
Claudio Monteverdi, Tiziano himself, Antonio Canova, as well as numerous
doges.
It is the only important Italian church to have preserved a
large choir surrounded by a high wall at the end of the central nave in
front of the high altar, according to medieval use.
Under the doge Jacopo Tiepolo (1229-1249) in 1231 "... Alli Fratti
then Minori was likewise donated by the Commun a vacant land located in
Contra' de San Stefano Confessor known as de San Stin, where a Giesa de
Santa was also named Maria de' Frati Minori, and that a Monastery was
built". The Franciscan friars work to reclaim the so-called Badoer lake,
a marshy area in the district of San Stefano Confessor (San Stin) which,
with the addition of land donated by doge Renier Zen (1253-1268),
becomes the place where the first church was built dedicated to the
Madonna, which the Venetians immediately called Santa Maria dei Frari
(ie "of the friars") or more simply "Frari", and the adjoining
monastery.
However, this first church was already insufficient
for the faithful who flock there for mass, so on 28 April 1250 by the
papal legate, the cardinal deacon Ottaviano Ubaldini, the first stone of
the new, second church was laid, dedicated to Santa Maria Gloriosa,
which it had a "cappella granda" with "do capellette" on the sides. It
had three naves, about fifty meters long and the foundations of the
apses bordered the "rio dei Frari", at the point where the stone bridge
later built by the friars in 1428 stands.
Within about eighty
years the church was once again too small and it was decided to invert
its architectural structure, going around the apse and bringing the main
façade of the new church towards the canal; instead the part close to
the stream was demolished, which was filled up, and the Campo dei Frari
was built with a well for fresh water.
Around the year 1330 work
began, under the supervision of Jacopo Celega and then completed by his
son Pier Paolo in 1396, for the new church, the third built by the
Franciscans: with three naves, a transept and seven apses; the eighth
was added thanks to the generosity of Giovanni Corner in 1420, with the
creation of the chapel of San Marco.
In the years 1432-1434 the
bishop of Vicenza Pietro Miani had the chapel of San Pietro built at the
foot of the bell tower to be buried there when he died.
The
construction of the church in the following years proceeded slowly, so
much so that the facade was finished only in 1440 and the high altar
consecrated in 1469, but the frame, made up of two fluted columns,
joined by an elegant entablature and surmounted by three statues, the
work of Lorenzo Bregno, it was only raised in 1516. The church was
consecrated on 27 May 1492 to the name of Santa Maria Gloriosa.
The Pesaro family gave a new approach to the construction and decoration
of the church, to which in 1478 the sacristy was granted as a family
chapel and burial place: the ninth polygonal apse was erected, the main
altar was completed , then decorated by the altarpiece with the famous
Assumption by Titian, and in the side nave the Pesaro altar with the
homonymous altarpiece.
In the 19th century, the Franciscans were
removed from the church, which was returned to them only in 1922.
- Counter facade
- Chapel of the Crucifix
- Monument to Canova
- Monument to the Doge Pesaro
- Pesaro shovel
- Chapel of St.
Peter
- Chapel of San Marco
- Chapel of the Milanese
- Chapel
of San Michele
- Chapel of the Franciscan saints
- Historic choir
and pipe organs
- Presbytery
- Monument to the Doge Tron
- XIII
century crucifix
- Assumption by Titian
- Monument to Doge
Francesco Foscari
- Chapel of St. John the Baptist
- Chapel of the
Blessed Sacrament
- Bernard Chapel
- Christ pass
- Altar in the
sacristy and triptych by Bellini
- Sacristy
- Altar of Relics
-
Entrance to the Chapter Hall
- Wall of the right transept
-
Monument to Jacopo Marcello
- Altar of Saint Catherine
- Altar of
St. Joseph of Cupertino
- Altar of the Presentation of Jesus in the
temple
- Monument to Titian
- Altar of St. Anthony of Padua
The interior is in the shape of a Latin cross, divided into three
naves with 12 pillars, which support pointed arches connected to the
impost by wooden structures, the walls are entirely finished with a fake
brickwork (regalzier).
Counter facade
As you enter, looking at
the counter-façade (1), to the left of the main portal is the Monument
to Alvise Pasqualigo, who died in 1528, procurator of San Marco. The
monument is a work by Lorenzo Bregno.
To the right of the main
portal appears the Monument to Pietro Bernardo, who died in 1538; it is
the work of Tullio Lombardo with the collaboration of the workshop. The
monument is surmounted by the group depicting St. Peter presenting the
deceased to Christ.
Above the portal you can admire the Monument
to Girolamo Garzoni, who died in the siege of Negroponte in 1688. The
work, in an elaborate Baroque style, is made with polychrome marble and
is full of decorations and allegorical statues.
In the upper part
of the counter-façade there are eight canvases with depictions of
Stories of Franciscan saints, all works by Flaminio Floriano, a painter
active in Venice between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the
16th century. Further down, on the left, Glory of Saint Francis by
Pietro Della Vecchia.
Right side of the counter-façade: St. John
blessing the disciples who came to visit him in prison, large oil on
canvas by Angelo Venturini from 1731. Above the canvas, the monument of
Senator Simonetto Dandolo who died in 1360.
As you enter, on the right there is the Altar of Sant'Antonio: the
project is by Baldassare Longhena and dates back to 1663 by Giuseppe
Sardi, while the statues are by Bernardo Falconi and Giusto Le Court. On
the right, a large altarpiece by Francesco Rosa with the Miracle of
Saint Anthony of Padua.
In front of the first pylon there is a
stoup with a bronze statuette depicting Sant'Agnese, by Girolamo
Campagna from 1593.
In the second span, in the place where according to tradition the
master from Cadore was buried, there is the Monument to Titian, the work
of Luigi and Pietro Zandomeneghi. The monument, in the shape of a
triumphal arch, is decorated with some allegorical statues and some
bas-reliefs depicting three Titian masterpieces, the Assumption, the
Martyr of Saint Peter and the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence.
Then
follows another altar (29) from the Renaissance era dedicated to the
Presentation of Jesus in the temple; the altarpiece that adorns it is
the work of Giuseppe Salviati.
Monument to the prince of Modena
Almerico d'Este
Author: anonymous
Century: XVII
Date:
post 1666
Location: right aisle - fourth altar of San Giuseppe da
Copertino (on map nº 28)
Technique: sculpture - materials: marble
The altar took on its new appearance in 1753, that is when the
statues and stuccos of Alessandro Vittoria were removed to place the
canvas by Giuseppe Nogari representing San Giuseppe da Copertino in
ecstasy.
The Prince of Modena Almerico d'Este in 1666 was sent to
help the Serenissima in 1666 in command of a nucleus of French auxiliary
troops during the war of Candia (1645-1669).
Originally dedicated to Saint Ursula and then to Saint Lucia, Girolamo Zane made agreements with the brotherhood and commissioned Alessandro Vittoria for the renewal in 1526. In 1564 there was an altarpiece depicting the Assumption of the Virgin with St. Peter and St. Andrew. The only marble statue is San Girolamo in the center of the altar. On the pediment two sibyls. The stucco altarpiece has degraded and been replaced with a painting by Giuseppe Nogari representing the miracle by Giuseppe da Copertino from 1753.
Altar of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (27)
The altar is
dominated by the altarpiece by Jacopo Palma il Giovane which depicts
the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The painting shows the
very moment in which the angel saves the saint from the torture of the
wheel, while her executioners become victims of their own instrument
of death, which breaks and overwhelms them.
To the right of the
altar, the tomb of Jacopo Barbaro.
On the left is the Portrait of
Romuald of Camaldoli by Gian Antonio Fumiani
followed by the
funeral monument to Marco Zen, by Mattia Carneri;
the monument to
Giuseppe Bottari. by Francesco Cabianca
and the monument to
Benedetto Brugnoli
Transept - right arm
On the right wall is
the monument to Jacopo Marcello, commander in chief who died during
the assault on Gallipoli (1484). The work is attributed to Pietro
Lombardo or Giovanni Buora; above the urn, supported by three small
male figures, is the statue of the deceased in armor and two
shield-bearing pages. The monument is enclosed in an ovoid frame
surrounded by fresco paintings of panoplies and culminating in the
scene of the Triumph of the hero, in mantegna.
Immediately next
to this monument, supported and pushed aside by two angels, begins the
decoration of a fake curtain which continues on the adjoining wall as
a background for the entire chevet that separates the church from the
sacristy.
On this wall, on the right, there is the Monument to
Blessed Pacificus, the favorite companion of Saint Francis. It was
built by the procurator Scipione Bon, when he was still alive, for
himself and then given to bury the blessed. The work, which dates back
to 1437, is attributed to Nanni di Bartolo and Michele da Firenze,
while the hanging urn, in gilded marble, is decorated with bas-reliefs
with depictions of the Resurrection and the Descent into Limbo and
with statuettes of theological virtues ; above, within an ogival
lunette in which busts of saints with a Madonna at the top emerge
between the foliage decoration and angel musicians, there is a
bas-relief of the Baptism of Jesus. The frescoes of the Annunciation
and of the vestment with angels and lions are attributed to Zanino di
Pietro.
Above and around the door that leads into the sacristy
is the Monument to Benedetto Pesaro, captain of the sea, who died in
Corfu in 1503; the statue of the armed deceased is the work of Lorenzo
Bregno, while on the sides there are Mars, the work of Baccio da
Montelupo, and Neptune, by an anonymous author. The reliefs of the
fortresses of Lefkada and Kefalonia appear on the urn, captured by the
admiral flanked by two galleys. Inside the tympanum is the Virgin and
Child. only religious representation in the monument.
On the
far left of the same transept wall you can see the funeral monument to
Paolo Savelli, a Roman noble in the service of the Serenissima, who
died in 1405; the hanging urn, still Gothic in style, is adorned with
statues of saints and a Madonna with Child and is surmounted by the
equestrian statue of the deceased, in gilded and polychrome wood: it
is the first equestrian statue dedicated to one of the captains of
fortune of the Republic.
Sacristy
You enter the sacristy
from the north transept, passing under the monument to Benedetto
Pesaro. The modest original room was enlarged to 31x8.8 m after being
granted to the Pesaro family in 1478.
Left wall
The
tabernacle-reliquary of the Precious Blood, by Bartolomeo Bellano and
workshop, built to house the relic donated by Melchiorre Trevisan to
the church in 1480. Until 1581 it was placed on the right wall of the
Trevisan chapel, before being moved to the sacristy. On the sides of
the tabernacle are the statues of Giovanni Battista, by Tullio
Lombardo, and Francesco di Assisi, by his brother Antonio.
Francesco Pianta's clock.
The Deposition of Niccolò Frangipane,
dating back to 1593.
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon and
the Adoration of the Magi, from the Mint and attributed to Antonio
Negretti known as Palma.
Altar
On the triumphal arch and on the vault: the Annunciation and the
Evangelists, frescoes attributed to Jacopo Da Montagnana (1480-85 c.).
On the altar is the altarpiece with the Madonna enthroned with the
Child surrounded by saints Nicholas, Peter, Benedict, Mark and two
musician angels, a triptych by Giovanni Bellini, signed and dated 1488.
The work still has its original carved frame by Jacopo da Faenza.
On
the left wall, Hagar in the desert by Giovanni Battista Pittoni.
Right wall
Madonna of Mercy with Saints Marco and Francesco
dell'Ortolano.
The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine by Girolamo
da Santacroce.
St Philip Neri by Giuseppe Nogari.
Madonna in
prayer by Giovanni Battista Salvi (copy from - 19th century).
Altar
of the Relics, by Francesco Cabianca and Andrea Brustolon
Chapter
room
Monument to Francesco Dandolo. The chest, which has a relief
with the Dormition of the Virgin, was once completely gilded. Above the
chest, Francesco Dandolo and his wife presented to the Madonna and Child
by Saints Francis and Elizabeth painted by Paolo Veneziano.
Doge
Marino Morosini of Palma il Giovane.
Right apsidal chapels
Bernard Chapel
The Bernardo chapel, located near the door that leads
to the sacristy, has as its altarpiece the polyptych by Bartolomeo
Vivarini signed and dated 1482; the painting, which is still within its
original frame, represents the Madonna and Child with Saints Peter,
Paul, Andrew and Nicholas; on the upper part there is a Pietà. On the
right wall there is an urn from the beginning of the 15th century, of
Gothic art, intended to contain the remains of Lorenzo and Girolamo
Bernardo, who died at the beginning of the following century. Under the
altar is a statue with the relics of Blessed Gentile da Matelica, a
minor friar who died as a martyr in Persia on 5 September 1340. His body
was brought back to Venice by Marco Corner. The friar had predicted his
dogado of him.
Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament (18)
The
altarpiece (1910) by the sculptor Vincenzo Cadorin (1854-1925), was
gilded by the Michieli brothers. The bronze door of the tabernacle by
Renato Brozzi based on a drawing by Massimiliano Ongaro. On the left
side of the chapel the monument to Arnoldo d'Este, who died in 1337. On
the right side of the chapel the monument Duccio Alberti, ambassador of
Florence to the Serenissima, who died in 1336.
Chapel of St. John
the Baptist
The Chapel of San Giovanni Battista is also called the
chapel of the Florentines, because it was given for use to the Scuola
dei Fiorentini, whose members commissioned Donatello to create a wooden
statue depicting the saint who owned the chapel.
Presbytery
On
the left wall you can see the Mausoleum of Doge Niccolò Tron, the work
of the Veronese Antonio Rizzo.
On the right wall is the Mausoleum
of Doge Francesco Foscari, the work of the Florentine artist Nicolò di
Giovanni. The urn in which the doge rests is supported by four graceful
shelves decorated with the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope and
Charity, the work of Antonio Rizzo.
Left apsidal chapels
Chapel of the Franciscan Saints (10)
Next to the presbytery is the
chapel of the Franciscan Saints; on the altar there is the altarpiece by
Bernardino Licinio from 1535 with the Madonna and Child enthroned
between the saints Antonio, Ludovico da Tolosa, Francesco and
Bonaventura. On the left wall you can see the panel with the first five
Franciscan martyrs, by Bernardino Licinio from 1524. The five martyrs
are Bernardo, Pietro, Accursio, Adiuto and Ottone, among the first
companions of Saint Francis, who suffered martyrdom in Morocco for
having preached the Gospel, when the saint was still alive. On the same
wall on the left you can see the Ecstasy of San Francesco by Andrea
Vicentino. On the right wall is the tomb of Senator Nicolò Lion,
transferred here from the nearby church of San Nicolò della lettuga,
founded by Lion himself in 1342 and demolished in 1830.
Chapel of
San Michele (9)
In the chapel of San Michele (also known as the
Trevisan chapel) above the altar there is a wooden triptych with the
statues of saints Antonio, Michele and Sebastiano, of Venetian art from
the 15th century. On the right wall you can admire the monument to
Melchiorre Trevisan, who died in Kefalonia in 1500. The statue of the
leader is attributed to Lorenzo Bregno. On the left wall appears the
Immaculate Conception surrounded by saints, a large canvas by Giuseppe
Angeli.
In the next chapel of the Milanese on the floor there are some tomb
seals of the Franciscan friars of Lombard origin and also the tomb of
Claudio Monteverdi, who died in Venice in 1643. On the right wall there
is a painting signed by Giovanni Contarini with Sant'Ambrogio driving
away the Arians, while on the left wall Sant'Ambrogio prevents the
emperor Theodosius from entering the church, by Tizianello. The altar is
dominated by the altarpiece by Alvise Vivarini, which depicts
Sant'Ambrogio enthroned between musician angels and eight saints and
above the Coronation of the Virgin. The altarpiece, due to the death of
Vivarini, was completed by Marco Basaiti in 1503. A couplet on the
painting says:
«Quod Vivarine nequisti your fatal death
Marcus
Basaitus noble prompsit opus.
Chapel of San Marco (7)
The last
chapel on the left is the chapel of San Marco or the Corner chapel,
added to the original body of the church in 1417 on commission from
Giovanni Corner in memory of Marco, an illustrious exponent of the noble
Venetian family. On the opposite wall there is the monument to Federico
Corner, worthy of the Serenissima Republic during the war of Chioggia
against Genoa, who died in 1382. The monument is in pure Renaissance
style and has been attributed to a follower of Donatello: against a
background of cherubs chiaroscuro there is the newsstand decorated with
an angel in high relief holding the cartouche with the dedication of the
chapel at the Corner (attributed to Giovanni Maria Mosca). For the
pictorial decoration, the attribution to the young Andrea Mantegna has
been advanced. On the left you can admire the baptismal font decorated
on the top with a marble statue depicting St. John the Baptist, a work
by Jacopo Sansovino from around 1528; on the wall the Descent into Limbo
by Jacopo Palma il Giovane. The altar is surmounted by the triptych by
Bartolomeo Vivarini signed and dated 1474, perhaps partly executed with
the help of the workshop. The triptych depicts Saint Mark enthroned
between musician angels and Saints John the Baptist and Jerome on the
left and Niccolò and Paolo on the right.
Transept - left arm
Monument of Generosa Orsini and Maffeo Zen
The marble work dating
back to 1498; it is attributed to Pietro Lombardo.
On the back wall
of the transept: three oils on canvas:
Christ, Virgin and Saints in
Glory by Andrea Vicentino
Massacre of the Innocents by Niccolò
Bambini
The Brazen Serpent by Andrea Vicentino
Left aisle
Seraphic tree of the three Franciscan Orders by Pietro Negri, 1670
Oil on canvas. A large canvas depicting the Franciscan Tree: the saints
of the Order of Saint Francis of Assisi canonized at the time.
Monument to Girolamo Venier
Lieutenant of Udine in 1651.
Chapel of St. Peter (6)
The chapel is also known as the Emiliani
Chapel, in memory of Pietro Miani, bishop of Vicenza, who had it built
in 1432 and where he was buried in 1464.
Monument of Jacopo
Pesaro
Work by Tullio and Antonio Lombardo 1524 made for Jacopo
Pesaro while he was alive (he died in 1547). He was bishop, but also
general of the galleys of Pope Alexander VI.
Shovel Pesaro (5)
See the specific article: Pala Pesaro.
Funerary monument to Doge
Giovanni Pesaro (4)
The entire wall of the bay, around the side door,
is occupied by the funeral monument to Doge Giovanni Pesaro, who died in
1659.
Stoup of the Immaculate Conception
Statue of the
Immaculate Conception adorning the stoup, the third pillar on the left.
It comes from the hermitage of Monte Rua, on the Euganean Hills and
dates back to the 18th century.
Tomb of Canova (3)
In 1794
Antonio Canova designed and built a model for Titian's funeral monument,
but there were many difficulties in raising the necessary funds for the
construction, so that in 1822, the year of Canova's death, it was still
in the project stage. Canova was buried in Possagno, his birthplace, the
Academy of Fine Arts in Venice decided to have a monument built to
preserve the porphyry urn containing the artist's heart; the work was
undertaken by six of his pupils and completed in 1827. It is a
pyramid-shaped cenotaph enriched by mythological figures. Eros and
Psyche (representing Love, Desire and the Soul), Perseus and Medusa
(representation of the Hero victorious over the earthly trials) and the
three Graces, symbol of the theological virtues: Faith, Hope and
Charity. Under the central medallion there is a door towards which the
funeral procession is directed. The veiled character of Death, who
carries a canopy, is followed by the semi-naked young man who holds a
lit torch, to represent Immortality which symbolically comes after
death. Two women follow with a crown of flowers, a symbol of hope in the
charity of immortal life. Two young men holding lighted torches close
the procession. The torches indicate the Faith that is renewed. On the
first of the three steps is a sleeping winged lion (Power, Wisdom,
Justice with a reference to the Apocalypse of John in which the Winged
Lion opens the Book of Life). Here the lion means that Canova died
bringing with him Wisdom and Faith towards God. On the second step
stands a melancholic angel with open wings, representing the guardian
angel of the soul. A hem of the tunic slides towards the third step
where a laurel crown rests, the crown of victory abandoned by the one
who was glorious in life despite knowing how to keep away from the
vainglory of the world. Without a tunic, the angel is naked, like the
naked Truth.
Stalls
The large choir, located in the central nave of the
basilica, is the only one in Italy to have maintained its original
position in front of the main altar, according to medieval use. It was
finished in 1468 by the Vicenza engravers Francesco Cozzi (who died
during the work) and his brother Marco Cozzi, who signed the inscription
located outside the last stall towards the sacristy. The choir consists
of 124 stalls, of which 50 in the upper tier, 40 in the middle and 34 in
the lower. It has a height of 4.50 m, a width of 13.70 m and a length of
16 m. The 50 upper stalls are decorated with a double order of panels.
The upper ones, enclosed in graceful frames, have figures of saints in
relief with the characteristic Gothic carving with German influence. The
lower ones are inlaid with figures of buildings, streets, fields and
wells in foreshortening and perspective. The rest of the choir is all an
inlay of very varied geometric shapes, meticulously worked. In the
carving work, typical elements of Venetian late Gothic art can be seen,
such as spiers, pinnacles and volutes, mixed with decorative elements of
the Italian Renaissance.
Septum
A few years after the
conclusion of the wooden apparatus, the choir was completed towards the
nave by an articulated partially gilded marble septum and opened by a
large arched portal, mainly the work of the Lombard workshop. Above this
arch is a large wooden crucifix by an anonymous Venetian engraver,
flanked by the two statues of Mary and John, probably by Vittore
Gambello. At a lower level, the septum is crowned by eight statues
representing some apostles as well as Saints Francis and Anthony, also
by Gambello. At the top corners are two hanging ambos flanked by angels
holding lecterns. The underlying walls, marked by pilasters, are
decorated with bas-reliefs arranged on two levels representing the
patriarchs, prophets and doctors of the church. On the entrance side,
under the two ambos, four doctors can be identified on the left, Gregory
the Great and Jerome, and on the right, Ambrose and Augustine,
emblematically intent on studying. All the others are represented as
sources of acanthus leaf ornaments in individual panels and accompanied
by fluttering scrolls: (left, above) Abraham, David and John the
Baptist; (below) Enoch, Jonah, Jacob, and Elisha; (right, above) Daniel,
Jeremiah and Zechariah; (below) Moses, Elijah, Isaiah as well as the
portrait of the procurator Giacomo Morosini who had commissioned the
work, identified only by the inscription on the scroll «Soli Deo honor
et gloria». The septum folds back on the sides continuing the
representations with Samuel and Abacuc, on the left, Isaac and Ezekiel
on the right.
History
The first news concerning the organ in the Basilica dei
Frari dates back to the 15th century. In fact, in 1483 a chronicle of
the convent refers to the existence of a "perfectum" organ. Among the
best-known organists of the basilica are Girolamo Diruta (1586-1589) and
Giovanni Picchi in service for over thirty years, probably from 1593 at
least until 1629.
An engraving depicting the choir of the basilica,
made by Father Vincenzo Coronelli in 1708, shows that at that time the
basilica had two organs placed laterally on the choir stalls, facing
each other, on the perimeter wall of the choir.
The organ on the
left was probably built by Giovan Battista Piaggia in 1732: this
instrument could therefore be one of his first works. The activity, so
far known, of this Venetian organ builder extends, in fact, from 1740 to
1760: the organ he built for the Venetian church of San Giovanni
Evangelista dates back to that date, which has remained practically
unchanged; the latter therefore served as a term of comparison to
validate the attribution of that of the Frari and, above all, to allow
its reconstruction in 1970. In fact, after Gaetano Callido had built the
opposite organ (1795), this instrument was progressively abandoned, so
as to reach the early seventies almost completely stripped of the metal
pipes.
The right organ was built by Gaetano Callido in 1795/96.
An almost uninterrupted documentation, up to the first decades of the
twentieth century, allows us to know how this instrument, unlike the
other, was entrusted to qualified organ builders for ordinary
maintenance and, from time to time, restored with substantial respect
for its authenticity.
The problem of restoring the two ancient
organs was tackled only in 1969: in fact, after the construction of the
new Mascioni organ with electro-pneumatic transmission (1928), an organ
located in the apse close to Titian's Assumption, the use of the Callido
organ it decreased over time and, so much so that between 1929 and 1969
there were no maintenance interventions.
The restoration of the
organs involved an extraordinary maintenance intervention for the right
organ, given the good conditions of conservation and integrity; while a
more radical intervention involved the left organ: in practice, a
reconstruction in the strict sense, given that seven facade pipes, all
the internal mechanics, nine wooden pipes and a bellows were missing.
For this reconstruction all the surviving elements were used and, on the
basis of these, also making comparisons with the organ of San Giovanni
Evangelista, the measurements of the pipes were established.
The
restoration made it possible to appreciate again the round and robust
sounds of the Callido organ and the transparent and delicate timbre of
the Piaggia organ, closer to Renaissance sound models. The instruments
were finally tuned in unison to be played together. After more than
thirty years, a new revision work was promoted and completed in April
and May 2004.
In the basilica dei Frari the practice of the
double choir is revived, thanks to the availability of the two organs
placed on two opposite choir stalls, typical of a musical style in vogue
in Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries: that of the Frari is the last
surviving example in Venice - and one of the rare ones in Italy - of two
choir stalls with functioning historic organs.
Piaggia organ
The organ in the left-hand choir loft, with original integral mechanical
transmission, has a single keyboard of 45 notes with a stiff first
octave (C1-C5) and a pedalboard of 13 (C1-E2) with a stiff first octave,
constantly joined to the manual . The exhibition consists of 21 pipes,
belonging to the main register and forming a single cusp with side wings
and aligned shield mouths. Keeps the original handwritten log cards.
On the right choir loft there is the pipe organ built by Gaetano
Callido: it has an original integral mechanical transmission; it has a
single keyboard of 47 notes with a first octave weak (C1-D5) and a
lectern pedalboard of 17+1 (C1-G#2 + Rollante pedal) with a first octave
weak, constantly combined with the manual. The exhibit consists of 21
pipes, belonging to the main register and forming a single cusp with
lateral wings and aligned miter mouths, at the foot of which the
trombones are housed.
Mascioni organ
The basilica also housed
the Mascioni opus 398 pipe organ, built in 1928.
It was located
behind the Assunta altarpiece of the main altar, was electrically
driven, had three keyboards of 61 notes each (C1-C6) and a pedal of 30
(C1-F3).
At the time of its construction in 1928 it was the
largest organ in Venice, the only one with three manuals from the
Caecilian period, the only instrument that allowed concerts to be
performed with a repertoire that could range from the romantic to the
contemporary period.
Despite the transformation of the
transmission from pneumatic to electric, the organ kept intact all the
pipes (about 2000), the bellows and the windchests (with the exception
of that of the third manual which was destroyed by high tides during the
restoration of the Assunta Altarpiece in the Sixties), the beautiful
wooden cabinet of the console, with its original ivory keys.
In
1964 it had been disassembled and placed in the Frari chapter room to
allow the restoration of the altarpiece with an anti-woodworm treatment
carried out by the Central Institute for Restoration. In 1966, with the
high tide, the wooden parts of a windchest were damaged, while the other
windchests and the pipes survived. In 1977 the organ builder Girotto
reassembled it, not completely, and in 1992 Paccagnella completed it by
adding the pedal reed stops and transforming the transmission from
pneumatic to electric.
With a threefold press release issued by
the Basilica dei Frari, by the Superintendency of Fine Arts, and by the
Patriarchal Curia of Venice, in 2018 the organ was definitively
dismantled to allow the complete restoration of the altarpiece and the
frame of the Assumption. Finally it was donated to the Parish of Santa
Maria Ausiliatrice in Jesolo. The instrument, in need of restoration,
was entrusted to the Cav. Francesco Zanin of Codroipo. In addition, the
phonic arrangement has also been expanded. The organ was inaugurated in
its new location on Sunday 24 April 2022 by Maestro Alessandro Bianchi.
Giambattista Pittoni, Hagar in the desert comforted by an angel, in
the sacristy, left wall apse, oil on canvas (18th century)
Giovanni
Bellini, Frari Triptych, in the sacristy
Jacopo Parisati da
Montagnana, The Annunciation and the Evangelists, frescoes in the
sacristy
Workshop of Bartolomeo Bon the Younger, figures of the
Virgin and Saint Francis on the west wall
Bartolomeo Bon the Younger
and Pietro Lombardo, Jubé (1475)
Antonio and Paolo Bregno, tomb of
Doge Francesco Foscari (attributed; however, it could be the work of
Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino)
Lorenzo Bregno, tomb of Benedetto
Pesaro near the entrance to the sacristy; tomb of Alvise Pasqualino in
the west wall
Girolamo Campagna, statuettes of St. Anthony of Padua
and St. Agnes in the nave
Marco Cozzi, choir stalls
Donatello, St.
John the Baptist in the first south chapel of the choir
Tullio
Lombardo, tomb of Pietro Bernardo in the west wall (attributed; could be
the work of Giovanni Buora)
Francesco Pianta il Giovane, Clock by
Stefano Panata, in the chapter house
Antonio Rizzo, tomb of Doge
Niccolò Tron in the presbytery
Jacopo Sansovino, St. John the
Baptist, sculpture on the baptismal font in the Corner chapel
Titian,
Assumption, the main altarpiece, which is the largest altarpiece in
Venice; Pesaro altarpiece on the north wall of the nave
Paolo
Veneziano, Doge Francesco Dandolo and his wife presented to the Virgin
by Saints Francis and Elizabeth in the chapter house
Alessandro
Vittoria, figure of the Risen Christ on the west front; figure of St.
Jerome in the southern wall of the nave
Alvise Vivarini,
Sant'Ambrogio and other saints in the north chapel of the transept, the
last work of the artist
Bartolomeo Vivarini, San Marco enthroned in
the Corner chapel in the transept; Madonna and Child with Saints,
altarpiece in the third chapel of the south choir
Andrea Brustolon,
Thurifer Angels, three sculptures in gilded wood, in the sacristy
Peter Bernard (†; 1538) (senator)
Antonio Canova (only his heart
is buried here, in a tomb made by Canova's pupils, based on the master's
drawings for a never made tomb for Titian)
Frederick Correr
Doge
Francesco Dandolo (†; 1339) (in the chapter house)
Doge Francesco
Foscari (†; 1457)
Jacopo Marcello
Claudio Monteverdi (†; 1643)
Blessed Pacificus (founder of the new church in the fifteenth century)
Alvise Pasqualigo (†; 1528) (Procurator of San Marco)
Benedetto
Pesaro (†; 1503) (general)
Doge Giovanni Pesaro (†; 1659)
Bishop
Jacopo Pesaro (†; 1547)
Paolo Savelli (leader) (the first Venetian
monument to include an equestrian statue)
Melchiorre Trevisan (†;
1500) (general)
Doge Nicolò Tron (†; 1473)
Titian (†; 1576)
Giuseppe Volpi (†; 1947, buried here in 1955)
The first house of the friars had risen up against the church: a
small one-story building, made of wood and bricks. After the fire of
1369, the convent was rebuilt and enlarged.
The ancient convent
of the conventual friars was called Magna Domus Venetiarum or Ca' Granda
dei Frari, both for its size (more than 300 cells) and to distinguish it
from the other Franciscan convents in the city and, mainly, from the
adjacent convent of San Nicoletto dei Frari or "della Lettuce".
The convent was also characterized by its two cloisters, now owned by
the State Archives. In the second half of the eighteenth century the
buildings surrounding the two cloisters were rebuilt or restored by the
architect Bernardino Maccaruzzi.
For about three centuries (from
the 16th to the 18th century), the convent was the site of a printing
press to which P. Vincenzo Coronelli added a zincography, also creating
an international center of hydraulic and cartographic sciences with the
foundation of the Argonaut Academy (1684) .
The convent, rebuilt
and enlarged several times, was transferred to the State in 1810
following the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders, and in 1817 it
was assigned by the Austrian government as the seat of the General
Archive of Veneto, then the State Archive of Venice, established in 1815
.
Cloister of the Trinity
Leaning against the northern side of
the basilica, the cloister, almost square in shape (31 x 34 metres), is
surrounded by a sixteenth-century portico with round arches that support
a balustrade terrace.
The rich sculptural decoration is instead
the work of the early eighteenth century: the arch that frames and
overlooks the well is supported by coupled columns and adorned with a
sculptural group that depicts the Trinity in glory and is flanked by the
statues of Saint Peter and Saint Mark . At the corners of the cloister
are the archangels Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and a fourth angelic
figure identifiable with Uriel or the Guardian Angel. The eight
sculptures on the terrace instead represent saints of the Franciscan
order.
While reliable data on the sixteenth-century phase of the
construction of the cloister - which renewed an older arrangement of the
area - and on the attribution of its architecture have not yet emerged
from the sources, archival documents instead allow us to date the
decoration works with certainty. promoted by the father maestro Antonio
Pittoni, as also recalled by some contemporary engravings by Vincenzo
Coronelli, the famous Franciscan cosmographer who lived in the Frari
convent. In 1712, in fact, a contract was stipulated with the
stonecutter Giovanni Trognon for the erection of the great arch and the
restoration of the well, and for the execution of the statues which,
from the payment notes, appear to be the work of the sculptor Francesco
Cabianca.
The works continued with the construction of the
pavement, decorated with strips of marble that form an octagonal
geometric motif (of which the design that served as a model is
preserved) and ended in 1715.
The decorative apparatus can be
read from the western side of the cloister, which overlooks the chapter
house of the convent, whose lancet windows belong to the
fourteenth-century phase of construction of the complex. Opposite, the
eastern side is almost entirely occupied by the summer refectory, now
the study room of the Archive, a large fifteenth-century hall divided
lengthwise by five columns, three in Istrian stone and two in green
granite (almost certainly coming from a late antique or Byzantine), and
covered by cross vaults. No longer used as a refectory, at least from
the seventeenth century it was reduced to a warehouse like other rooms
of the convent, many of which overlook the cloister, rented precisely as
warehouses, or, on the upper floors, as venues for meetings of religious
brotherhoods and associations.
For the subject of the sculptural
decoration, the cloister took on the name of "cloister of the Trinity",
but as long as the building was the seat of the Franciscan convent it
was commonly known as the "external cloister", because it was also
accessible to the secular faithful, or "of the dead ", as there are
numerous arks and burials. The practice by the Franciscans of granting
permission to bury the dead is attested for this cloister since the
thirteenth century. In the eighteenth century there were now hundreds of
arks and tombs, many of which with inscriptions that are no longer
legible. In addition to many patrician families, in fact, confreres from
schools of devotion, national or arts schools had their burial here,
such as the confreres of the schools of Sant'Antonio and of the Vergine
della Concezione dei Frari, those of the Albanese school in San Maurizio
and the school of San Michele dei Bocaleri. In 1754, for reasons of
hygiene, the burials were sealed: evidence of this remains, however, in
some tombstones still walled up in the walls or scattered under the
portico. Among these we note the fourteenth-century funerary monument of
Guido da Bagnolo, physician to the king of Cyprus and one of the
Aristotelians refuted by Francesco Petrarca in De suis ipsius et
multorum ignorantia: in the form of an aedicule, it portrays the
deceased kneeling before the Virgin, presented by Saint Prospero, patron
saint of Reggio, the city of which he was originally from.
Public
access to the portico was linked not only to the burials and to the
devotion to the images of the Madonna delle Grazie and the Madonna del
Pianto (to whom two chapels were dedicated which opened respectively on
the western and northern sides of the well), also to the public use of
the water from the well, reiterated in 1712 and lasted until the
mid-nineteenth century.
The cloister was also crossed annually by
the solemn ducal procession on the day of San Rocco: the doge, in fact,
after having gone to the nearby church dedicated to the saint, entered
the cloister passing through the garden of the novitiate of the convent,
and from here, through the still existing, it entered the church, where
it stopped in adoration of the Eucharistic species before returning to
the ducal palace.
The northern side is delimited by the body of
the building which divides the cloister of the Trinity from the second
cloister of the former convent, also from the sixteenth century.
Cloister of Sant'Antonio
The second cloister is called Sant'Antonio;
its shape is due to Sansovino (1486-1570). It is supported by 32
pillars. The well, with the statue of Saint Anthony of Padua, was built
by Father Giuseppe Cesena in 1689.
In this wing of the building,
a second refectory, the so-called winter refectory, was built in the
mid-16th century, smaller than the older one.
San Nicoletto of
Lettuce
Adjacent to the second cloister, a convent began to be
erected, later called San Nicoletto della Lettuga, for elderly
well-deserving friars, which was erected in execution of the testament
of the procurator of San Marco Nicolò Lion, notarized on 13 February
1354. Enlarged at the end of the fourteenth century , was restored in
1582. Raised by one floor in 1660, it was destroyed by fire in 1746 and
immediately rebuilt. Behind the convent there was a plot of land used
for the cultivation of vineyards, vegetables, medicinal plants, fragrant
and aromatic plants and fruit trees.
It was suppressed by
Napoleon in 1806 and abandoned by the religious on 27 September. It had
its own church, restored in 1561 and consecrated in 1582, with five
altars with works of art by Donato Veneziano, Titian, Veronese, Alvise
Benfatto, Palma il Giovane, Marco Vecelli and a choir carved in 1583 by
Girolamo da Feltre, sold in 1809 for thirty coins. The suppressed church
was demolished, like many others in Venice, in 1809.
Napoleonic
suppression
Even this basilica was plundered with the Napoleonic
suppressions. On 12 May 1810 the religious community of the Frari (of
the Friars Minor Conventual) was suppressed and the church became a
parish including the nearby religious churches (San Stin, San Tomà, San
Polo, San Agostin), entrusted to diocesan priests. In 1922 Patriarch
Peter La Fontaine, having resigned due to seniority the last diocesan
parish priest, Msgr. Paolo Pisanello, obtained from Rome the transfer of
the parish to the order of Friars Minor Conventual of the province of
Padua.