The church of San Tomà, Venetian for St. Thomas, is a religious building in Venice, located in the San Polo district, in Campo San Tomà, opposite the Calegheri scoletta.
The church of San Tomà was initially erected under the title of
Saints Sergio and Bacchus in 973 with an annexed convent of probably
Benedictine nuns. It underwent a first restructuring in 1395. In 1538 it
was rebuilt with three naves, dedicated to St. Thomas and entrusted to
the secular clergy, becoming a parish church. In 1652, based on an
initial project perhaps by Baldassare Longhena but created by Giuseppe
Sardi, a new facade was built. Between the end of the seventeenth
century and the beginning of the eighteenth century the top was
decorated with five statues. Starting in 1742, the unsafe building had
to be demolished and rebuilt with a classical-style façade by the
architect Francesco Bognolo, repositioning the original sculptural
parts.
In 1810 the parish function passed to the Frari and the
church remained closed for a few years, in 1836 it was granted to the
Conventual Fathers who in 1840 built, alongside the back of the church
on the right, an elliptical plan chapel intended to collect the relics
of the suppressed churches . In 1867 it passed into state ownership but
continued to be accessible as an oratory.
For many years the
church has been closed to the public as it is used by the diocesan
neocatechumenal center of the Patriarchate of Venice.
At the top of the tympanum on the classical facade is the sculptural
group of the Incredulity of St. Thomas and at the sides St. Peter and
St. James, all created between 1696 and 1699 by Francesco Cabianca and
relocated after the rebuilding. While the next two statues attributed to
Paolo Callalo (1706/1707) which were originally placed above the extreme
corners of the wings of the church have been moved to the new niches.
Above the door on the right side is the sarcophagus of Giovanni Priuli,
the remnant of a larger monument from 1375, and walled on the left side
is the large ogival lunette representing a low-relief Madonna venerated
by brothers from an unknown demolished late medieval portal.
The
interior has a single nave and the ceiling is frescoed by Jacopo Guarana
with the Martyrdom of St. Thomas within the quadratures by Giuseppe
Moretti. On the first altar on the right is the altarpiece of the
Madonna and Saints by Vincenzo Guarana and on the third the Visitation
of the Virgin by Pietro Tantini (1792). In the presbytery we find some
works from the original structure: on the main altar the Incredulity of
St. Thomas altarpiece by Antonio Zanchi is flanked by the statues of St.
Peter and St. Thomas by Gerolamo Campagna (1616). On the left the second
altar is the one that belonged to the nearby Scuola dei Calegheri: the
altarpiece San Marco heals the shoemaker Aniano is by Giovanni Fazioli
(1789 or before) and was placed in place of a painting by Palma il
Giovane.