Page 133 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Venice & The Veneto

DORSODURO  131

4 Campo Santa building in the centre of the 6 Santa Maria
Margherita square, has a faded relief of dei Carmini
the Madonna della Misericordia
Map 6 D2. 4 Ca’ Rezzonico. protecting the tanners. Campo Carmini. Map 5 C3. Tel 041
The sprawling square of 522 65 53. 4 Ca’ Rezzonico or San
Santa Margherita, lined with 5 Scuola Grande Basilio. Open 2:30–5pm Mon–Sat.
houses from the 14th and Known also as Santa Maria dei
15th centuries, is the lively hub dei Carmini Carmelo, this church was built
of western Dorsoduro. Market Campo Carmini. Map 5 C2. in the 14th century but has since
stalls, offbeat shops and Tel 041 528 94 20. 4 Ca’ Rezzonico. undergone extensive alterations.
cafés attract many young Open 11am–5pm daily. The most prominent external
people. The fish stalls sell live Closed 1 Jan, 25 Dec. & ^ feature is the lofty campanile,
eels and lobster, the erborista ∑ scuolagrandecarmini.it whose perilous tilt was
alternative medicine, and the skilfully rectified in 1688.
bakers some of the tastiest The headquarters of The impressive interior
loaves in Venice. the Carmelite is large, sombre and
The former church of Santa confraternity was richly decorated.
Margherita, now an auditorium built beside The arches of the
owned by the university, lies to their church nave are adorned
the north of the square. Visitors in 1663. In with gilded
can see sculptural fragments the 1740s wooden statues,
from the original 18th-century Giambattista and a series
church, including gargoyles, Tiepolo was of paintings
on the truncated campanile commissioned illustrating the
and adjacent house. The to decorate the Santa Maria dei Carmini history of the
Scuola dei Varotari (“Scuola of ceiling of the Carmelite Order.
the Tanners”), the isolated salone (hall) on the upper floor. There are two interesting
The nine ceiling paintings that paintings in the church’s side
he produced so impressed the altars. Cima da Conegliano’s
Carmelites that Tiepolo was Adoration of the Shepherds
promptly made an honorary (c.1509) is in the second altar on
member of the brotherhood. the right (coins in the light meter
The ceiling shows St Simeon are essential). In the second altar
Stock Receiving the Scapular of on the left is Lorenzo Lotto’s
the Carmelite Order from the St Nicholas of Bari with Saints Lucy
Virgin. The Carmelites honoured and John the Baptist (c.1529).
St Simeon Stock because he re- This painting demonstrates
established the order in Europe the artist’s religious devotion,
after its expulsion from the Holy personal sensitivity and his love
Land in the 13th century. of nature. On the right-hand
The archive rooms also side of this highly detailed,
contain remarkable art and almost Dutch-style landscape,
elaborate woodwork, with there is a tiny depiction of
ceiling and wall paintings by St George killing the dragon.
A 15th-century carving of Santa Margherita Giustino Menescardi and To the right is a small Holy
and the dragon caryatids by Giacomo Piazzetta. Family by Paolo Veronese.
Scuole
The scuole were peculiarly
Venetian institutions. Founded
mainly in the 13th century, they
were lay confraternities existing
for the charitable benefit of the
neediest groups of society, the
professions or resident ethnic
minorities (such as the Scuola
degli Schiavoni, see p122).
Some became extremely
rich, spending large sums
on buildings and paintings,
often to the disadvantage
of their declared beneficiaries.
Upper Hall of the Scuola Grande dei Carmini

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