The first vaporetto stop after San Giorgio Maggiore is close to the tiny church of the Zitelle , which was built in 1582-86 from plans worked out some years early by Palladio, albeit for a different site. In the eighteenth century the convent attached to the church was renowned for the delicacy of the alter produced by the young girls who lived in its hostel. The Casa de Maria , to the right of the Zitelle, is an inventive reworking of Venetian Gothic, built as a studio by the painter Mario de Maria in 1910-13. Its diaper-pattern brickwork, derived from that of the Palazzo Ducale, is the only example of its kind in Venetian domestic building. The neigbouring building is somewhat less inventive but very welcome nonetheless – it’s a new housing development, one of several such schemes to revitalize the island.
The Zitelle is open for Mass Sun 10am-noon.
La Giudecca’s main monument, beyond the tug-boats’ mooring and the youth hostel (once a granary), is the Franciscan church of Il Redentore , designed by Palladio in 1577. In 1575-76 Venice suffered an outbreak of plague which killed nearly fifty thousand people – virtually a third of the city’s population. The Redentore was built by the Senate in thanks for Venice’s deliverance, and every year until the downfall of the Republic the doge and his senators attended a Mass here to renew their declaration of gratitude, travel to the church over a pontoon bridge from the Záttere. The Festa del Redentore has remained a major event on the Venetian calendar – celebrated on the third Sunday of July, it’s marked by a general procession over the temporary bridge and a huge fireworks display on the previous evening. A large number of people spend the night out on the water, partying with friends on board their boats.
The Redentore is open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm (closed Sun in July & Aug); L3000/1.54.
Palladio’s commission called for a church to which there would be three distinct components: a choir for the monks to whom the church was entrusted, a tribune around the altar for the dignitaries of the city, and a nave with side chapels for the humbler worshippers. The architect’s scheme, in which the tribune forms a circular chapel which opens into the nave and blends into the choir through a curved screen of columns, is the most sophisticated of his church projects, as well as the one most directly evolved from the structure of ancient Rome (the Imperial baths in particular). Unfortunately, though the interior has recently been cleaned, an appreciation of its subtleties is difficult, as a rope prevents visitors going beyond the nave. In the side-chapels you’ll find a couple of pictures by Francesco Bassano and an Ascension by Tintoretto and his assistants, but the best paintings in the church – including a John the Baptist by Jacopo Bassano , a Baptism of Christ by Paolo Veronese and Madonna with Child and Angels by Alvise Vivarini – are in the sacristy, which is usually closed on Saturday and Sunday. The Vivarini is accompanied by a strange room of eighteenth-century wax heads of illustrious Franciscans in various attitudes of agony and ecstasy, arranged in glass cases all round the room.
