The church of San Paolo apostolo vulgo San Polo is a religious building in the city of Venice. It gives its name to the district in which it stands.
According to ancient Venetian chronicles, the church likely dates
back to 837, when it is said to have been founded under the authority of
Doge Pietro Tradonico, with the involvement of his son Giovanni, who
acted as co-regent. In its earliest phase, the church was
administratively dependent on the Patriarchate of Grado, reflecting the
ecclesiastical structure of early medieval Venice, when religious
institutions were still closely tied to the lagoon’s wider patriarchal
jurisdiction.
The building underwent its first major phase of
renovation between the 14th and 15th centuries, a period during which
Gothic architectural language was introduced and gradually integrated
into the earlier structure. Surviving elements from this phase include
the pointed arched lateral portal, the ogival vaults of the side nave,
and the rose window that still defines the composition of the façade.
These additions reflect the broader Venetian adoption of Gothic forms,
adapted to local construction traditions and spatial constraints.
By the end of the 16th century, the church experienced another
significant restoration campaign. Around this time, the original
entrance portico was closed off and repurposed as the Oratorio del
Crocifisso, a transformation that altered both the functional use and
visual perception of the façade, which became partially obscured and
less legible from the exterior.
Between 1804 and the rededication
in 1839, the church underwent extensive restructuring under the
direction of architect David Rossi. These interventions significantly
reshaped the interior: the original columns of the central nave were
replaced, several openings were sealed while others were newly created,
and the overall spatial organization was adjusted to reflect
neoclassical principles of symmetry, clarity, and order. This phase
effectively redefined the church’s interior character, moving away from
its Gothic-medieval appearance.
Later restorations carried out in
the 1930s sought to recover elements of the earlier historical fabric,
partially reinstating 15th-century features, most notably the
distinctive “ship-hull” wooden ceiling structure. Following the
Napoleonic reforms, the church became the rectorial church of the Frari
parish, with the exception of the period between 1928 and 1966, when it
temporarily regained the status of a parish church.
Today, the
church is part of the Chorus Venezia association, which is responsible
for the conservation, management, and promotion of many historic
Venetian churches, ensuring their preservation and public accessibility.
External
Incorporated by other modest buildings, part of the apse
overlooking the field of the same name and the sides remain visible.
Along the right side opens the large late Gothic portal by the workshop
of Bartolomeo Bon decorated with two angels holding a scroll on the
entablature and culminating in the fiorone holding a half figure of
Saint Paul beyond the eaves line. Further on, in the narrowest part of
the salizada, the classical facade of the Oratorio della Croce, a
refined structure marked by Corinthian semi-columns with Serlian-like
openings. The original rose window on the ancient facade is barely
visible from the adjacent Corte del Cafetier. Over time some marble
works were walled up here and there on the outside: the most recent is
the neoclassical aedicule with the statue of St. Paul in the center of
the main apse; on the left, on the minor apsidal chapel, the
fifteenth-century aedicule of the Scuola del Santissimo sacramento is
surmounted by a Baroque drapery and instead surmounted by the plaque
(dated 1611) which forbids all games in the field and the placing of
stalls against the church; on the walls of the old rectory which
incorporate the other apse chapel are two primitive bas-reliefs, the
upper one with the Baptism of Christ, the lower one with the Madonna and
Child enthroned with Saints Demetrius and Peter.
Bell tower
The bell tower with a conical cusp was raised in 1362 and is located
beyond the salizada and acts as a bottleneck. The entrance is surmounted
by two facing lions, which probably had the function of stylophores in
the narthex of the previous church, one bearing a snake in its claws,
the other a human head. The figures, according to imaginative
reconstructions, would recall the tragic end of Marino Faliero, or of
the Count of Carmagnola: however, the thing is unreal given that the
sculptures are prior to the events of the two characters and that,
moreover, these iconographic variants are frequent in many Romanesque
works.
Internal
The interior has a basilica plan with three
naves which correspond to three apsidal chapels. The original facade is
to the left of the entrance.
Central nave
The 1930
restorations brought to light the typical Venetian structure of the
ship's hull ceiling and the mullioned windows immediately below. The
Ionic trabeated colonnades separating the lateral naves remain and above
the columns some nineteenth-century grisailles by an anonymous fresco
artist: four tondos with the Evangelists alternating with six
rectangular panels with the Stories of Saint Paul.
Counter facade
To the left is the Last Supper (1568-69) by Jacopo Tintoretto and to the
right St. Sylvester Baptizing Constantine Emperor by Paolo Piazza (late
Tintoretto early 17th century). In the center above the door is the
organ by Gaetano Callido (1763) adorned with the statues of Santa
Cecilia playing a small organ and King David with the harp.
Pipe
organ
In the choir loft on the counter-façade there is a valuable
organ built by Gaetano Callido in 1763 which represents his first
creation in Venice as well as his first "double" instrument (opus 7-8),
i.e. with two keyboards. The registers of Fluta 8' and Piccolo 2' both
in positive sopranos date back to the restoration of 1839 by Giacomo
Bazzani. A further intervention carried out by the Bazzani company dates
back to 1900 and on this occasion the knobs of the registers were
replaced. After a long period of abandonment, in 2013 the organ
underwent a conservative restoration by Francesco Zanin and on this
occasion the upper part of the case was rebuilt in a modern style, as
the original one, very run down, had been removed in first quarter of
the 1900s. On the occasion of this restoration, the trumpets and the
sieve of the Grand'Organo and the cornet of the positive were
reconstructed. The cornet of the Grand Organ has been restored, having
been transformed into a piccolo in 1839, retaining many of the original
pipes.
The instrument has two original boxwood and ebony
keyboards of 45 keys each with a rough first octave, a (reconstructed)
lectern pedalboard with 17 pedals (12 real notes, the 18th pedal
activates the rolling) and a lantern bellows with two pumps operated
manually and with an electric fan. The union is by drawer and the
filling by crank. The knobs of the Grand'Organo registers (second
keyboard) and of the pedal are located to the right of the keyboards
while those of the positive (first keyboard), as well as the positive
itself, are located to the left of them. The pipes on the façade,
belonging to the basses of the main 8', have shield mouths, in front of
them is the socket of the trombones. The cellos of the positive are the
first example of this particular reed register invented by Callido.
The audio layout is as follows:
Right aisle
In the first
altar from the back is the altarpiece of the Assumption and Saints by
Jacopo Tintoretto, on the sides of the door a Face of Christ and a
Nativity scene, decorative bas-reliefs re-emerged during the
restoration, and the workshop on the second altar the Madonna and Child,
sculpture by Pietro Zandomeneghi work Canova of the 19th century.
Right apse chapel (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament)
An elegant
Lombard structure restored in 1702, the vault and basin are decorated
with frescoes Glory of Angels and Stories from the Old Testament by
Gioacchino Pozzoli (18th century) and on the walls by four canvases by
Salviati: Washing of the feet, Christ in the garden of the olive trees,
Ascent to Calvary, Deposition. The altar with the tabernacle is from the
17th century.
Presbytery
On the altar are the two valuable
bronze sculptures by Alessandro Vittoria: San Paolo and Sant'Antonio
Abate. On the back wall and on the sides the paintings by Palma il
Giovane: the altarpiece of the Conversion of Saint Paul (1595-1600), on
the right Saint Peter sends Saint Mark to preach the Gospel in Aquileia
(1625), The delivery of the keys to Saint Peter (1625), on the left The
Liberation of Saint Anthony the Abbot (about 1600) and The Temptation of
Saint Anthony the Abbot (about 1600). The presbytery is completed by the
canvas San Lorenzo among the devout (16th century) of the school of
Bonifacio de Pitati, placed on the right of the apse, the ancient
standard of the Congregation of the Clergy of San Paolo (15th century),
on the left, and the large fragment of Crucifix (14th century), mounted
on a wooden shape that suggests its probable original shape, suspended
from the triumphal arch.
Left apsidal chapel
On the altar of
the short chapel, the altarpiece of the Marriage of the Virgin by
Veronese (about 1580) inside which is inserted the small panel of the
Madonna of Loreto by an anonymous 15th-century artist. On the right is a
good anonymous canvas representing St. Peter (18th century).
Left
aisle
On the first altar from the apse is the altarpiece The
Preaching of St. Paul by Paolo Piazza (17th century). On the second
altar built by Giorgio Massari, in a short side chapel is the mature
altarpiece depicting The Virgin appears to San Giovanni Nepomuceno by
Giambattista Tiepolo (1754) with the probable partial help of his son
Giandomenio and carefully restored before 1999. Critics are divided who
to attribute the commission to: the King of Poland Augustus III who, in
1740, had donated a relic of the Bohemian saint to this church, or more
probably to the parish priest Bartolomeo Carminati, as part of his
restructuring programmes. On the third and last altar is the altarpiece
of The Sacred Heart of Jesus, a late work by Jacopo Guarana (1802).
Oratory of the Crucifix
From what was once the main entrance from
the facade, where originally there was a narthex, you enter the
eighteenth-century oratory of the Crucifix. Here is what is considered
Giandomenico Tiepolo's first work, the Via Crucis painted between 1747
and 1749 and carefully restored. The set of fourteen canvases already
reveals the peculiar way of the young painter in the dramatic
construction of the scenes through decentralized and diagonal
perspectives.
In the same chapel are kept other works carried out
in the same years by the young Tiepolo: the San Filippo Neri in prayer,
the Martyrdom of San Giovanni Nepomuceno, the Saints Elena and Macario
discovering the True Cross, the San Vincenzo Ferreri preaching to the
crowds and the two canvases for the ceiling, the Resurrection of Christ
and the Glory of Angels.
Also interesting is the elegant rococo
structure of the altar enclosed by a colonnade and illuminated by the
high windows of the drum. In the niches on the sides of the altar, the
busts of San Marco and of a Bishop (Anonymous, 15th century)