Chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angeli

Santa Maria degli Angeli is a former convent church on the western edge of Murano. Founded as a convent in 1187, it was rebuilt in the late fifteenth century; its history is reflected in surviving architectural details and artworks now held elsewhere on the island.

Why it matters

The convent was an important religious foundation in Murano and was rebuilt as a monumental church between 1482 and 1495. A double choir preserves the spatial arrangement of the nuns' community. The convent was suppressed in 1810, after which the church lost much of its art and the former monastic complex.

What to notice

The stone doorway of the cemetery chapel, demolished in 1830, remains embedded in the church's right wall. Paolo Veronese's canvases of Saint Jerome and Saint Agatha had been placed in that chapel and were transferred to San Pietro Martire in 1815. Part of the painted wooden ceiling showing the Coronation of the Virgin, made by Nicolò Rondinelli and assistants around 1490–95, survives. The building's double choir reflects its original use as a convent church.

Context and history

The convent was founded in 1187. A domed presbytery chapel from the late fifteenth-century rebuilding has been attributed to Giovanni Buora, following an invention by Pietro Lombardo. The church's first altarpiece was a Bellini Assumption of 1502–04; a votive painting bequeathed by Doge Agostino Barbarigo was later added. In 1566, the nuns granted land for a cemetery chapel, and Veronese's canvases were moved into the church in 1667. After the 1810 suppression, the paintings passed to San Pietro Martire by 1815, and the chapel was demolished in 1830. Vincenzo Zanetti published a history of the monastery and church in 1863.