The Church of the Most Holy Savior, commonly known as San Salvador, is a Catholic place of worship in Venice, located in Campo San Salvador, in the San Marco district, not far from the Rialto bridge.
Like all the oldest Venetian churches, the origins of San Salvador
are also steeped in legend. Tradition has it that it was founded in 638
by San Magno, a native of Altino and bishop of Oderzo, with the support
of the Carosio and Gattaloso families. Shortly after he assumed the
prerogatives of pieve.
According to documents, however, the first
attestation of San Salvador dates back to 1141. In that year, thanks to
the initiative of the parish priest Bonfilio Zusto, the church was
transformed from a parish to a reformed collegiate church, reaching a
group of canons devoted to the rule of St. Augustine. From the beginning
it ran into a series of disputes with the bishop of Castello and the
neighboring parishes, but they were soon overcome thanks to the
recognition of Pope Innocent II who in the same 1141 granted the
community apostolic protection, the right to elect its own prior and the
tithes that already belonged to the old parish.
Strengthened by
these prerogatives, in the following years San Salvador in turn
attempted to expand its borders to the detriment of the neighboring
parish churches, in particular San Bartolomeo. Only in 1299 were the
disputes between the two parties resolved thanks to an agreement which
redefined the limits of the respective territories and the division of
the tithes (collected by the Procurators of San Marco and divided by
them between the two parishes).
Between the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries the reformist drive that had animated the previous
centuries failed and the community went through a period of spiritual
and material decline. In 1441, however, thanks to the interest of Pope
Eugene IV (the Venetian Gabriele Condulmer) the community was renewed
with the installation of regular canons of the Congregation of the
Lateran Santissimo Salvatore.
With the advent of Napoleon, in
1807, the rectory of San Salvador was also suppressed. Its assets became
state property and the monastery was converted into barracks, while the
church became a parish under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of
Venice. In 1810 he extended the jurisdiction over the territory that had
been San Bartolomeo.
The sixteenth-century building was designed by Giorgio Spavento and completed by Tullio Lombardo as regards the interior, while the facade was built in the seventeenth century by Giuseppe Sardi.
The facade of the church has a vertical subdivision into two orders
and a horizontal tripartition with the central part wider than the
others.
The lower order sets the four mighty composite order
columns on high plinths. The pairs of pilasters flanking them which, in
lesser relief, flank them contribute to underlining the monumentality of
the semi-columns. Festoons and leonine protomes decorate the cornice at
the height of the capitals under an entablature concluded by an
indentation which supports the last strongly projecting moulding.
The portal follows the monumentality of the facade, with a
triangular tympanum set on the entablature supported by two semi-columns
side by side, this time only towards the outside, by slightly pointed
pilasters. The side wings are opened by rectangular gabled windows above
which commemorative plaques are placed.
The higher order takes up
the harmony of the lower one with less emphasis. In correspondence with
the four semi-columns below there are four allegorical statues of the
virtues; above each one the head of a putto is inserted in the
semi-pillar which supports an unusual modillion connected to the
overlying indentation. In the center we find a window defined by two
concentric arches set on four pillars.
The summit tympanum only
affects the central part, while five statues, saints on the sides and
the Savior at the apex of the tympanum, are distributed across the
entire width. Both the summit statues and those above the semi-columns
are attributable to Bernardo Falconi.
Originally the façade was
even more loaded with statues with figures lying on all the tympanums of
the openings as well as two putti erected above the semi-columns of the
portal. This is documented by the engravings by Carlevarijs and
Visentini,
On the left side of the facade, at the base of the
first column, a cannon ball can be seen embedded in the wall. In fact,
the church was hit in the siege of 1849 during one of the many
bombardments that the Austrian troops inflicted on the city from fort
Marghera, which proclaimed itself an independent republic under the
leadership of Daniele Manin. The bullet lodged in the point where it is
still visible today, without causing further damage to the structure. An
engraving above the cannonball recalls the episode.
Another
entrance to the church is on the left side, near Marzaria San Salvador.
The interior follows the horizontal tripartition of the facade, with
three domes of the same diameter set along the longitudinal axis of the
church. The domes follow a quincunx pattern, also called a quincunx.
Each dome has four minor domes placed at the vertices of the square on
which the perimeter of the main domes rests. The latter have the
internal domes of the plant in common, thus reaching the number of eight
minor domes placed in the lateral aisles of the church. The quincunx
scheme is linked to Byzantine architecture and consequently to the
origins of Venetian architecture: other Venetian examples of this
arrangement are the Church of San Giovanni Grisostomo and the Church of
San Nicolò di Castello (destroyed with the Napoleonic suppressions of
1810).
This layout is completed by a transept and three
semicircular apses, one of which, the largest, completes the central
nave.
The arches supporting the domes are set on a total of
sixteen composite order pillars, eight on each side, which divide the
church into three naves.
Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, is
buried in the church in the funeral monument dedicated to her. Three
doges of the sixteenth century are also buried there: Doge Francesco
Venier, in a monument by Jacopo Sansovino, and two doges of the Priuli
family, Lorenzo and Girolamo, gathered in the same monument. The high
altar and the altar of San Girolamo are the work of the stonecutter
Guglielmo dei Grigi, known as Guglielmo Bergamasco, dated to the first
half of the 16th century. In the church there are two paintings by
Titian, the Annunciation (1559-1564) and the Transfiguration, on the
high altar. On the first altar on the left there is an altarpiece by
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.