Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore

Facing the Doge's Palace across the water, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore is one of Venice's defining views. Andrea Palladio's basilica, built from 1566 to 1610, has a white Istrian-stone temple front toward San Marco, paintings by Tintoretto and a Benedictine community still in residence.

Why it matters

Italia.it describes the island as a familiar feature of Venice's skyline and a place of religious life under a Benedictine community since the tenth century. The medieval church and monastery were replaced by the sixteenth-century complex designed by Andrea Palladio and completed after his death by Vincenzo Scamozzi. The national heritage catalogue dates the church from 1566 to 1610 and attributes its design to Palladio. Its giant-order columns and white-stone façade form a classical counterpoint to Piazza San Marco across the water.

What to notice

The Latin-cross interior combines white plaster and Istrian stone. The presbytery holds Tintoretto's late paintings, including The Jews in the Desert Gathering the Manna, The Last Supper and The Deposition of Christ. Italia.it notes that Tintoretto portrayed himself as Joseph of Arimathea in the Deposition. Other works include Jacopo Bassano's Adoration of the Shepherds, a 1708 Madonna and Saints by Sebastiano Ricci, and paintings by Palma il Giovane and Domenico Tintoretto. The Palladian sacristy contains Giuseppe Porta's Presentation of Jesus at the Temple; the Deposition Chapel preserves a door associated with the island's first church.

Context and history

The Benedictine abbey continues to maintain the basilica. Its history includes the conclave of 1800, held on the island during the French occupation of Rome; the conclave elected Barnaba Chiaramonti as Pope Pius VII in the chapel now called the Conclave Chapel. The abbey records that the campanile collapsed in 1774 and was rebuilt in 1791 by the Somascan friar Benedetto Buratti, with architectural and chromatic features recalling the campanile of Piazza San Marco.