The church of Santa Caterina (vulgo Santa Caterina de' Sacchi) is a
Catholic place of worship in Venice, located in the Cannaregio district
dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
The building is part
of the Liceo Marco Foscarini complex, to which it has been annexed since
the current school was the convent of the Augustinian nuns.
It was begun by the Friars of the Sacco (Order of Penance of Jesus
Christ or de Poenitentia Jesu Christi, and also called Sacchiti or
Sacchini) who settled in this area, then marshy, at the beginning of the
XIII century. The religious were unable to finish it due to the
suppression of their order, which took place in 1274.
From that
year the building passed through various hands, from a wealthy merchant
who donated it to Bortolotta Giustinian, founder and first abbess of the
new convent of Augustinian nuns, established there and dedicated to
Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The memory of the previous and dissolved
order survived in the common name of Santa Caterina de' Sacchi to which
a local devotional school was also entitled.
On the occasion of
the anniversary of Saint Catherine, the doge went here to celebrate the
feast of the Dotti.
In 1970 a fire that occurred during
maintenance work devastated the church, destroying the dome, dating back
to the 18th century, a large part of the barco and the 14th-century
wooden ceiling in the shape of a ship's hull. Many of the works of art
contained in the building were lost: however the Mystical Marriage of
Saint Catherine by Veronese, perhaps the most important work, was saved
as it was definitively housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, where it
is still located. Other minor works inside are found in the Patriarchate
of Venice.
Three surviving works remain of the church. The first
is the very famous Life of Saint Catherine cycle, from around 1585, by
Tintoretto which is currently located in the Patriarchal palace, in the
center of which was the altarpiece by Veronese. Finally, also in the
Patriarchal palace is the canvas by Palma il Giovane of her The mother
of Saint Catherine consults her essays for the wedding of her daughter.
The church was finished only in the fifteenth century and had a
structure with three naves in the Gothic style. The ship's hull ceiling,
like the one present in the churches of Santo Stefano and San Giacomo da
l'Orio, was destroyed in 1979. There was a beautiful hanging choir on
the back wall, which was used by the nuns.
As part of the
collateral events of the LVI International Art Exhibition of the Venice
Biennale, the performance "An archaeologist's collection" by the Russian
artist Grisha Bruskin was set up inside the church, which can be visited
from 7 May to 22 November 2015. The The author made a series of almost
life-size statues a few years ago and buried them in Tuscany, in the
middle of the countryside, near an Etruscan necropolis. After a few
years he unearthed them by organizing a real archaeological excavation
campaign to bring them back to light and exhibit them inside the church
of Santa Caterina as part of his artistic project.