The church of San Lio is a place of worship in the city of Venice, located in the Castello district. It rises on the field of the same name, in the Rialto-San Zaccaria route.
It was built in the 9th century by the Venetian patrician family of
the Badoers and was dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
In 1054 it was dedicated to Saint Leo IX (San Lio in the Venetian
language), in honor of the pope who had supported the cause of Venice in
claiming protection over the patriarchate of Grado in the dispute
against the patriarchate of Aquileia which arose in 1043, when the doge
Domenico The Contarinis had stolen Grado from the patriarch of Aquileia
Poppone of Carinthia.
In the fifteenth century the presbytery was
rebuilt and two altars were erected on its sides.
The church
underwent some alterations and was radically transformed in 1783.
The church originally had Byzantine forms, with a basilica layout
with three naves, which were abolished in the eighteenth-century
transformation, in favor of a single large internal hall; on that
occasion the bell tower was also demolished.
Inside there are
some paintings and sculptures:
Apostle James by Tiziano Vecellio
(about 1540);
Angels and virtues, fresco by Giandomenico Tiepolo on
the ceiling;
Above the door of the chapel to the left of the main one
is the funeral monument of the "sea captain" Andrea Pisani, who died in
1718.
The church also preserves an eighteenth-century organ
(built by Gaetano Callido in 1784, op. 212) and paintings of the
Venetian school with Facts from the life of David and Virgin with putto.
Presbytery
Dead Christ Supported by Angels and Saints by Jacopo
Palma il Giovane on the high altar
The ceiling: An angel comes down
to comfort Elia by Pietro Moro
Gussoni Chapel
Four evangelists
and the Pietà and saints, by the sculptor Pietro Lombardo, perhaps
helped by his son Tullio, in the chapel of the noble Gussoni family, a
masterpiece of early Venetian Renaissance architecture. In the church in
which he was baptized, under the floor of the same chapel, Canaletto was
buried.