The church of San Marcuola or church of saints Ermagora and Fortunato is a religious building in Venice located in the Cannaregio district and overlooking the Grand Canal, right in front of the Fontego dei Turchi.
Tradition has it that it was built for the first time on the island
called Lemeneo even between the 9th and 10th centuries, and that it was
then destroyed by a fire following an earthquake. Here a small community
that fled the Lombard invasion would have found refuge.
It was
then in the 12th century that the current church was erected, thanks to
the contributions of the Memmo families, owner of the island of San
Giorgio Maggiore, and Lupanizza.
The original church, of which we
don't have much news, was placed in a longitudinal axis and parallel to
the Grand Canal and had a field in front of it. It is believed that
until the 11th century it was managed by nuns, who then moved near Campo
San Trovaso, creating the Eremitane convent there.
In 1663 only
small changes to the structure were noticed; it was in those years that
Antonio Gaspari presented his plans for the restructuring. These
projects remained on paper until 1730, the death of Gaspari, the year in
which they were entrusted to Giorgio Massari. He managed to finish the
internal part as early as 1736, but not the facade of the church, which
has still remained unfinished.
In 1779 the patriarch Federico
Maria Giovanelli consecrated it for the last time.
The name
Marcuola derives from the local pronunciation of the name of one of the
two titular saints, Ermagora, patriarch of Aquileia.
The first structure fell within the canons of the Romanesque style
and had three naves with an open trussed roof. The bell tower was built
next to the apse.
After the restructuring by the architect
Giorgio Massari, the church now has a single nave with a square plan,
covered by a "barrel" vault. An octagonal spire was also added during
the renovation of the church.
The presbytery was obtained from a
semicircular apse, which is the conclusion of the beautiful rectangular
main chapel, dominated by an oval dome, supported by four columns.
The chapel of Christ, located in front of the presbytery, dates back
to 1735.
The entrance door is uniquely placed on the left side of
the church; this is because, according to some drawings conserved in the
Correr Museum, Massari wanted to recreate the same effect of the church
of the Gesuati (Santa Maria del Rosario), which overlooks the Giudecca
canal.
The church offers a large collection of statues by the
sculptor Gaetano Susali, but his main work is the Last Supper by Jacopo
Tintoretto. At the foot of the table of the main altar is a painted
panel representing the Crucifixion with Saints Mark the Evangelist,
Baptist, Hermacora and Fortunato, attributed to Paolo Veneziano.