The Gesuiti: Marble Curtains & Titian's Night
Why is it significant?
Step inside the Gesuiti and give your eyes a moment. At first you will think the walls are hung with heavy green and white damask, like curtains in a palace. Walk closer... it is stone. Every fold, every flower, every tassel is carved and inlaid marble. The Jesuits had a stormy history in Venice.
Key Facts
| Place | The Gesuiti: Marble Curtains & Titian's Night |
|---|---|
| Address | Campo dei Gesuiti, Cannaregio, 30121 Venezia VE, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 45.44330, 12.33910 |
| Part of Walk | Venice Beyond the Crowds: Cannaregio and the Jewish Ghetto |
| Generated | Generated |
Step inside the Gesuiti and give your eyes a moment. At first you will think the walls are hung with heavy green and white damask, like curtains in a palace. Walk closer... it is stone. Every fold, every flower, every tassel is carved and inlaid marble.
The Jesuits had a stormy history in Venice. In 1606, during the Republic's quarrel with the Pope, they sided with Rome and were expelled from the city. They were allowed back only in 1657, and then they acquired the old church of an order that had just been dissolved, the Crociferi, and rebuilt it in the early eighteenth century in the most extravagant Baroque taste. It was their way of announcing that they had come back, and come back to stay.
The pulpit is the height of the illusion: a stone drape falls over its sides as if someone had just thrown a tablecloth across it. And in the left aisle, amid all this sparkle, hangs a dark, almost black painting that is the very opposite of decoration: Titian's Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. The saint is roasted on a gridiron at night, lit only by torches, a brazier and a burst of light from the sky. It is one of the great night scenes of European painting.
Just behind the church, the Fondamente Nove look out over the northern lagoon. Straight ahead lies the island of San Michele, ringed by walls and cypresses, the cemetery of Venice since Napoleon's time, where Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev and Ezra Pound are buried. Beyond it is Murano, and on a clear winter day the snowy peaks of the Dolomites appear on the horizon.
And so the walk ends at the water, as everything in Venice does. You began at the old water gate from the mainland, passed through the gates of the Ghetto and along the quiet canals of the people who still live here... and now the lagoon opens in front of you. Sit on the edge of the fondamenta for a moment. This, too, is Venice.