The church of San Zaccaria is a Catholic place of worship in the city of Venice, located in the center of Venice, near Piazza San Marco and Palazzo Ducale/ Doge, in the square that takes its name from it. The church is dedicated to Zacharias, father of Giovanni Battista.
Ancient church dating back to the 9th century, the period in which
the first building was built to house the remains of the father of San
Giovanni Battista which had been donated by the Byzantine emperor Leo V
the Armenian to the city of Venice to strengthen his friendship.
The doges Agnello and Giustiniano Partecipazio had a Benedictine
monastery added, which was rebuilt under the doge Orso I Partecipazio by
the abbess Giovanna, who was his daughter. In the year 1105 a terrible
fire destroyed it, together with the church, and it is said that more
than a hundred nuns died of asphyxiation, who had taken refuge in the
still existing basement under the main altar.
On 10 June 1458 the
building site for the "new church" of San Zaccaria was officially
opened. The Church of San Zaccaria is one of the oldest places of
worship in the city. Not only is this one of the best places to show the
power of the Republic through new buildings, but it is also the best
place to strengthen and legitimize the new role that Venice is ready to
play as "Alterum Byzantium". The organization of the construction site
is totally controlled by the nuns who directly manage the contracts with
the workers and deal with the supply of materials.
The scarce and
incomplete documentary information, while providing a good idea of how
they managed the construction site and the procurement of materials,
does not allow the project responsibilities to be defined. Antonio
Gambello's overall idea of developing his first project was not actually
supported by any document: a model was never mentioned or mentioned in
the projects spent on him. On the other hand, in that period there was a
general lack of documentation relating to the planning phase in Venice,
often entrusting the management of the construction sites to architects
without design responsibility.
The church of San Zaccaria is made up of two adjacent buildings,
known as the "old church" and "new church".
The "old church"
located on the right side of the "new church", includes, above the
crypt, the showy main chapel built and decorated between 1440 and 1445
today takes its name from San Tarasio, the adjacent chapel called dell'
Addolorata and other spaces created between 1458 and 1463, which were
subsequently modified.
The "new church" is the imposing basilica
of which Antonio Gambello served as protomaistro at the beginning, was
then succeeded by Mauro Codussi between 1458 and the early 16th century,
which is characterized above all by the ambulatory, the high vaults and
the triumphal stone facade.
The church built by Antonio Gambello
has a longitudinal plan with a single entrance and is divided into three
naves; it has cross vaults, a tripartite facade of paired columns and
opened by numerous windows, in decreasing number from bottom to top,
dominated by the large arched tympanum surmounted by the statue of San
Zaccaria. The width of the central nave is equal to twice the lateral
naves and ends with a polygonal apse/presbytery surrounded by an
ambulatory where there are the openings of the semicircular chapels. The
utility of the area behind the main altar is ensured by the spatial
continuity between the lateral passages and the lateral naves. It seems
that the articulation of the presbyterian area cannot be connected to a
technician like Gambello, as this suggests a reference to the Basilica
del Santo in Padua and a conscious restoration of the architecture of
the pilgrimage church.
The first two registers of the building
are known to be the most divisive among architectural historians. Of
course, the third register marks a change of pace and shows a new and
different way of working, but the compositional and chromatic
discontinuity between the first and second register raises questions. In
the first register, the grid obtained with the Istrian stone molding
band overlaps the masonry starting from the high base, which is
characterized by the presence of two large bulls. A stone grid marks the
surfaces, in which marble inlays build geometric decorative motifs.
Slender, twisted columns replace vertical bands of stone at the corners
of the buttresses. In the side bays of the facade, strips of Istrian
stone are juxtaposed with reliefs of a pair of prophets framed by
old-fashioned ornaments, festoons of flowers and fruits supported by
cherubs. The autonomy of some of the elements that make up the first
register is evident since the assembly did not take place simultaneously
but over time.
The gaps present in the documents between 1465 and
1473 do not help to give a precise answer to the design assignments and
Gambello's absence from the construction site since 1477 also led to
questions about who replaced him before Mauro Codussi was hired in 1483.
The plinth is not cut by inserting the door, but closes in a
"neutral" part of the facade, not covered by marble inlays. As regards
the portal, the bases of the pilasters contrast with the plinth and are
not integrated into the facade, while the entablature continues the
layout of the entire register. These inconsistencies are partly
explained by a payment made only in 1483 to Giovanni Buora for the
execution of the portal. In fact, observing the side entrance, carried
out in conjunction with the creation of the first register, a similar
inconsistency can be seen. Returning to the facade, noting the rhythm of
the mirrors and the assembly of the molded bands, we notice how the
width of the buttresses determines the geometry of the grid: this
process ignores the overall scale of the building, generating "waste" on
the surface to be covered.
First register
The architectural
order appears in the first register only to frame the entrance portal;
there are pseudo-Corinthian pilasters whose symmetry is marked by a
frame of beads and spindle whorls, and adorned with candelabra with
botanical motifs. The order of the motifs on the two pilasters is
symmetrical, with the candelabra almost superimposable on the one carved
on the first platform of the staircase of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino,
surmounted at the top by Federico da Montefeltro's emblem: the eagle
with outstretched wings on pairs of overturned bombards. In San Zaccaria
the bombards were removed and replaced with two bas-reliefs called
patere. Furthermore, on the left pilaster, a phoenix appears on the
brazier which replaces the bird of prey present on the right side of the
portal, i.e. the eagle "dei Montefeltro". The framing of the entrance
door of the church redefines the meaning of the decorative motifs in a
Christian key: the eagle is no longer a symbol of the empire, while the
phoenix clearly alludes to the passion and resurrection of Christ.
The second register is entirely in Istrian stone and is punctuated by
a succession of high arches, all blind and occupied by niches, except
for the four corresponding to the side naves. The niches do not align
with the geometric fraction of the first register, and upon careful
examination it emerges how the order of the pilasters is built through
juxtaposed elements whose dimensions often change to adapt to the
facade. Therefore, at the openings, it was necessary to reduce the
grooves from four to three and force the contraction of the capitals,
resulting in the existing four types of variation. The choice not to
alter the rhythm of the niches causes them to deform in the thickness of
the buttresses, and the assembly of different capitals cannot be
attributed to the principle of symmetry, suggesting a lack of knowledge
of the articulation of the elements in the entire logic of the
elevation. Although the second register exhibits a renewed old-fashioned
lexicon compared to what was done in the level below, it is unlikely
that Mauro Codussi was its author.
The micro-architectures that
make up the Throne of the Madonnas and the cornices of the politicians
of the fourteenth-fifteenth century are organized in a similar way:
lower registers with geometric backgrounds (even on several levels) on
which are superimposed a sequence of arches, ogival niches or aedicules
of different dimensions and contained in a frame determined by the
geometry of the "base". Let us consider two examples, one of which is in
the same church of San Zaccaria: the marble altarpiece of the Coronation
of the Virgin and Saints, sculpted in Venice in the winter of 1388 by
Iacobello and Pierpaolo dalle Masegne, and the wooden altarpiece by
Antonio Vivarini, Giovanni d'Alemagna and Ludovico da Forlì were placed
on the main altar of the Golden Chapel in the "Old Church" in 1445. The
motivation was the desire to continue the facade with an updated
old-fashioned architecture. In this regard, the impact of the San
Michele in Isola façade on the Venetian environment should not be
underestimated. The decision to completely abandon colored marble in
favor of Istrian stone underlines the sense of discontinuity between the
two registers which are actually composed of similar canons and return
the slow process of assimilation of the new language.
Given the
Gothic background and the compositional relationship with the
altarpieces, we can hypothesize the involvement of Antonio Vivarini, a
painter not accustomed to controlling large dimensions but had
frequented large construction sites and met artists from different
backgrounds. A sign of this is suggested by the pilasters that mark the
niches positioned above the side entrance, on the right side of the
church (probably the first to be built). Up to the first angular
buttresses, the niches are separated by a sequence of pilasters with
three or four flutes, pseudo-Corinthian capitals with curved abacuses,
abacus flowers and acanthus leaves and angular stems with hanging
leaves.
Starting from the right side of the church up to the
first buttress of the façade, the niches are marked with the same
pseudo-Corinthian order and decorated with shells, while the heads of
cherubs and seraphim are carved in the spandrels, between the arches
that delimit the niches. After the first buttress, this uniformity
ceases and even the shells lose their original naturalism, as their
shape is more simplified and the curvature of the valve is reduced.
Therefore, the model of the workers is different and, instead of the
putti's heads, plant motifs, dolphins tied by the tail to a trident and
anthropomorphic plant masks appear in the decoration inside the
spandrels.
Following numerous changes to the structure and internal division of
the building, today the interior of the church of San Zaccaria consists
of three naves, divided by columns resting on polyhedral plinths with
bases and capitals created by Giovanni Buora in 1480. The he final
formulation was by Antonio Gambello to whom we owe some details such as
the hemispherical dome, the choice of the cross vaulted ceiling and the
large surfaces enhanced by the black stone frames of Verona which give
the structure lightness and luminosity, characteristics unfortunately
later reduced by the insertion on the side walls of large
seventeenth-century canvases. What characterizes the church of San
Zaccaria is the exorbitant number of works of art that entirely decorate
the internal walls of the sacred building; all this only accentuates the
sense of monumentality and richness of the internal apparatus. There are
many names of well-known Venetian and non-Venetian artists who
participated in the construction of the church such as Tintoretto,
Giandomenico Tiepolo and Giovanni Bellini.
In particular, on the
counter-façade you can admire:
San Zaccaria in the temple presents
the offering of incense (c. 1684) by Antonio Zanchi;
Madonna with
Child, Saint John and the Saints (17th century) by Antonio Vassilacchi
known as Aliense;
Announcement of the Angel to San Zaccaria (early
17th century) by Jacopo Negretti known as Palma il Giovane;
Announcement of the Angel to San Zaccaria (c. 1684) by Antonio Zanchi;
Birth of Saint John the Baptist (c. 1684) by Andrea Celesti;
"The
Sacrifice of Isaac (17th century) by Antonio Vassilacchi known as
Aliense.
Furthermore, at the bottom right, there is a wooden
sculpture representing the image of Christ dating back to the fourteenth
century.
On the wall to the right of the nave we can find:
Visit of Emperor Otto III accompanied by Doge Pietro Orseolo II to the
monastery in 1001 (1709-10) by Giovanni Antonio Fumiani;
Doge Pietro
Lando at the consecration of the church in 1543 by Giovanni Lucio
Stofileo, bishop of Sebenico (18th century) by Daniele Heintz;
The
Easter visit of the Doge to the church (1688) by Antonio Zonca;
Holy
bishops, by Giovanbattista Bissoni;
The crib (second half of the 17th
century) by Andrea Celesti;
Tobias heals his father (c. 1630/40) by
Bernardo Strozzi;
Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1704/08) by Antonio
Balestra;
Glory of San Zaccaria (1599) by Jacopo Negretti known as
Palma il Giovane;
dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, while the
one on the left to Saint Zaccaria (today it is a copy of the original,
stolen in recent years). Other stone decorations are instead the work of
Antonio Gambello and Luca Taiamonte.
On the left wall of the nave
we can find:
Visit of Pope Benedict III to the monastery (1684) by
Andrea Celesti (1637–1712 ca.);
Transfer of the bodies of Saints
Pancrazio and Sabina from the old to the new church in 1628 (1684) by
Antonio Zanchi;
Marriage of the Virgin (c. 1600) by Antonio
Vassilacchi known as Aliense;
Holy Conversation (1505) by Giovanni
Bellini;
Presentation of Mary in the Temple (c. 1600) by Antonio
Vassilacchi known as Aliense.
Among the names of the works
mentioned above there are also those of the lunettes on the walls, it is
a cycle of frescoes by different authors that illustrates the historical
and mythical events of the monastery and the church of San Zaccaria and
dates back to the 1680s.
Inside the church of San Zaccaria there
are tombs dedicated to the doges, as well as to San Zaccaria himself,
father of San Giovanni Battista; we also remember the tomb of Alessandro
Vittoria made by himself. In addition, there are also other works of
inestimable value such as the polyptychs carved by Ludovico da Forlì
(15th century), the altarpiece or Sacra Conversazione from 1505 by
Giovanni Bellini, the Madonna with Child and saints by Palma il Giovane
and the Birth of St. John Baptist by Tintoretto (contained in the
sacristy).
Description of the Birth of St. John the Baptist by
Jacopo Tintoretto:
The protagonists bring to life a typically
popular scene: a room in which a birth has just taken place (the mother
on the right while the child in the foreground at the center of the
representation), the prevalence of female figures stands out but with
the exception of San Zaccaria, a right, which looks upwards where a
light is depicted, a symbol of divine intervention. Note the pyramidal
group of three young women who look after the child, with sweet
expressions and gentle manners, are represented with very elaborate
hairstyles, typical of Venetian fashion of the 500. the pregnant
Elizabeth, on the right, is looked after by a woman, for many the
incarnation of Mary. Others are the details that refer to Catholicism,
such as a table with bread, in the center of the scene, a symbol of the
Eucharist (we are in the period of the counter-reformation when the
Eucharist was recognized by Catholics as a sacrament while not by
Protestants). Finally, above we see two angels flying from outside to
inside the painting. This painting expresses a strong colorism even
though Tintoretto is generally the painter of chiaroscuro; this choice,
on the part of the artist, was dictated by the fashion of the time:
Veronese colourism, which had established itself above all among the
Venetian aristocracy (Jacopo in order to be able to grab the project
tried to beat the competition by satisfying the fashions of the time ).
The organ
The organ, located in the choir, is the work of Gaetano
Callido (opus 270), built in 1790.
Chapel of Sant'Atanasio
It
constituted the choir of the nuns, who through the grates in the small
windows open on the wall of the right aisle could attend the functions
in the church without being seen.
On the altar is: Birth of John
the Baptist, painting by Jacopo Tintoretto (originally located behind
the nuns' choir) from around 1563.
On the right: Flight into
Egypt, painting by Giambattista Tiepolo from the second half of the 17th
century.
Then follow:
Christ in the Garden, painted by Michele
Desubleo around 1660 (from the monastery of the church of Santa Croce);
Madonna and Child with Saints Bernardino, Gregory the Great, Paul,
Elizabeth, Benedict and Placido, painted by Palma il Vecchio from 1512;
Transportation of the body of the Virgin to the sepulcher, painted by
Leandro Bassano from the 17th century (from the monastery of the Church
of Santa Maria del Santo Sepolcro);
Foot washing, lunette painted by
Jacopo Palma il Giovane in 1620-28;
Deposition of the Virgin in the
tomb, painted by Leandro Bassano from the 17th century (from the
monastery of the church of Santa Maria del Santo Sepolcro);
Descent
of Christ into Limbo, lunette painted by Jacopo Palma il Giovane in
1620-28;
David victor celebrated by the maidens of Jerusalem, organ
panels painted by Jacopo Palma il Giovane in 1595;
San Gregorio and
saints, painted by Antonio Vassilacchi (known as Aliense) from around
1600.
Chapel of San Tarasio
It was the apse of the "old
church" rebuilt in flamboyant or late Gothic style around 1440 by
Antonio Gambello. Previously the presbytery of the pre-existing
building, it has a polygonal apse, opened by seven tall and narrow
mullioned windows, with ribbed vaults.
Various artists
participated in the decoration of this chapel as for the rest of the
church, in particular Andrea del Castagno between 1442 and 1444 (in
collaboration with Francesco da Faenza) whose fresco the Eternal between
Saint Zaccaria, John the Baptist and the Evangelists marks the entry of
the Tuscan Renaissance into Venice.
On the marble urn on the
right we find:
Polyptych of the body of Christ, also called of the
Sepulchre, carved and gilded frames by Ludovico da Forlì, paintings by
Antonio Vivarini, Giovanni d'Alemagna from 1443;
in the lower panel:
Christ in the sepulcher and pious women, between San Pancrazio, San
Nereo and San Achilleo;
in the upper panel: Risen Christ (the marble
urn has an engraved inscription relating to the saints Pancrazio, Nereo
and Achilleo).
On the right wall:
San Benedetto, almost
life-size wooden statue, sculpted for the nuns' choir in 1451.
On the
altar:
Polyptych of the Virgin (1443) carved and gilded frames by
Ludovico da Forlì, paintings by Antonio Vivarini, Giovanni d'Alemagna.
With the exception of the three central tables: Madonna with Child, San
Martino and San Biagio, dated 1385 and painted by Stefano Veneziano. The
back of the large altarpiece shows the saints whose bodies or relics are
kept in the church: San Zaccaria in the centre, San Stefano, San
Tommaso, San Gregorio, San Teodoro, San Leone, Santa Sabina, San Pietro,
San Claudio, San Tarasio, San Nereo, Sant'Achilleo, San Pancrazio. At
the foot of the altar we can instead see the remains of the mosaic floor
of the apse of the pre-existing Romanesque church (12th century).
On the apse the following are depicted in each ribbed sail of the
Gothic vault:
in the center: Eternal Father;
left: St. John the
Baptist, St. Matthew, St. Mark;
right: San Zaccaria, San Luca, San
Giovanni Evangelista.
Dated 1442 and signed Andrea da Firenze and
Francesco da Faenza, they are an early work by Andrea del Castagno.
On the left wall:
San Zaccaria, almost life-size wooden statue,
sculpted for the nuns' choir, from 1451.
On the marble urn on the
left:
Polyptych of Santa Sabina (1443) carved and gilded frames by
Ludovico da Forlì, paintings by Antonio Vivarini, Giovanni d'Alemagna.
In the lower panel: Santa Sabina, between San Gerolamo and San Lizerio".
In the upper panel: Angelo between Santa Margherita and Sant'Agata. The
marble urn contains the presumed relics of the martyr titular of the
polyptych.
Located under the chapel of San Tarasio, the crypt was built between
the 10th and 11th century in a similar way to that of San Marco. It is
still divided into three naves by two rows of small columns surmounted
by simple capitals that support cross vaults.
The crypt itself
does not retain any decorations or furnishings, with the exception of a
marble altar surmounted by a sculpture of the Madonna. However, we know
that in ancient times it housed the tombs of eight of the doges of the
first centuries of the Republic and, according to tradition, the body of
San Zaccaria also lies here.
The environment is located below
mean sea level, so water is present in it for most of the year. During
high tide, unfortunately, the crypt is literally flooded, making it
unusable, with obvious dramatic consequences for its conservation. When,
on the other hand, the water level is lower, it is possible to enter it
through a raised passage.