The church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti is a religious building in Venice, located in the Castello district, overlooking the homonymous river.
As early as 1224 there was a hospital dedicated to lepers in the
Dorsoduro district, named after their patron saint, the mendicant San
Lazzaro, in the parish of San Trovaso.
In 1262 the hospital was
transferred to an island in the Venice Lagoon, called, for this
function, hospital or San Lazzaro Island.
In 1500, thanks to the
reclamation carried out to build the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, a
basilica from the 19th century, a space was created to house a hospice,
dedicated to San Lazzaro.
In a short time it also became an
aggregation center for music, very important in Venice.
For this
church, in 1793, the composer Simon Mayr wrote Sisara, an oratorio in
two parts.
Now it has become the chapel of the Civil Hospital of
Venice.
Begun in 1601 to a design by Vincenzo Scamozzi, who designed the
church inside the wings of the factory, as Palladio did for the Zitelle
church.
It was completed in 1631, but the facade dates back to
1673 and is the work of Giuseppe Sardi. Built in a single order, with
composite columns that rise on high pedestals, we notice three statues
on the triangular pediment.
It is particular for the large
vestibule between the entrance and the interior of the church, which
made it possible to isolate it from external noise during concerts.
Here is housed the funeral monument to the leader Alvise Mocenigo,
who died defending Candia from the Turks in 1654. It was executed in
Baroque style by Giuseppe Sardi, and represents him in the garb of an
admiral.
The plan of the church has a single nave, with a large
square presbytery at the end. On the wall to the right, by Paolo
Veronese from the 16th century, Christ on the cross, the Virgin and
Saint John, and on the second altar, Saint Ursula and the eleven virgins
by Jacopo Tintoretto, from the 16th century.