Chiesa di Sant'Andrea de la Zirada

The Church of Sant’Andrea de la Zirada stands at the canal turn that gave it its name. Founded in 1329 as an oratory beside a shelter for poor women, it preserves a Gothic brick façade and a single nave later enriched with seventeenth-century stucco and an altar by Giusto Le Court.

Why it matters

Four noblewomen—Francesca Corner, Elisabetta Gradenigo, Elisabetta Soranzo and Maddalena Malipiero—founded the oratory with the consent of the Bishop of Castello. A shelter for poor women stood beside it, and the institution later became a convent. The church brings together the building’s charitable origins and successive architectural changes: a fourteenth-century Gothic façade, a mid-fifteenth-century nave and a Baroque interior. Its name, “de la Zirada,” refers to the bend in the canal beside which it was established.

What to notice

The brick façade is divided into three sections by pilasters and topped with blind arches. Reliefs in the pointed portal depict the Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew. Inside, the single nave has restrained proportions, while seventeenth-century stucco and Giusto Le Court’s high altar create a more elaborate focus at the east end. Four eighteenth-century sculptural groups line the side walls, including figures of Saint Nicholas and Saint Andrew. The church also contains paintings attributed to Domenico Tintoretto and tombstones commemorating Marco Gusmieri, Bishop of Nauplia, and the historian Flaminio Corner.

Context and history

The church’s foundations date to 1329, when the four women established an oratory and charitable shelter. A convent developed on the site, and the building took its present form across several centuries. Its brick façade and single nave belong to earlier phases, while the stucco and Le Court altar reflect the seventeenth-century renewal. Twentieth-century construction around Piazzale Roma and the Novissimo canal removed much of the church’s original urban setting. The building remains a surviving fragment of the older Santa Croce neighbourhood within a substantially altered landscape.