Chiesa di San Martino Vescovo

Burano's parish church of San Martino Vescovo contains a monumental Crucifixion by the young Giambattista Tiepolo. Behind the church, its slender bell tower leans about 1.8 metres from vertical, a distinctive feature of the island's skyline.

Why it matters

San Martino is Burano's principal religious building. Its campanile storto, or leaning bell tower, took its present form in the early eighteenth century. About 53 metres high, it leans roughly 1.8 metres from vertical, reportedly because of settlement in the lagoon ground. Inside, Tiepolo's Crucifixion, painted in the first half of the 1720s, is an important early work by the artist.

What to notice

The church's brick gable façade was never finished. The Latin-cross interior has three naves and vaulted ceilings. Tiepolo's Crucifixion hangs at the second altar on the left; in its lower-left corner a kneeling donor holds a portrait of himself, identified by scholar Gianantonio Moschini as an island apothecary. The Virgin, swooning in the foreground, forms the painting's emotional centre. In the chapel beside the presbytery, the church honours its three patron saints, Albano, Domenico and Orso. The tower tapers above the belfry to an iron cross; the cross replaced a bronze angel blown down in the storm of 25 September 1867.

Context and history

A church dedicated to Saint Martin has stood at Burano's centre for centuries. The present building took shape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The bell tower was built beside the apse in a campaign dated 1703–14 and attributed in secondary accounts to the Tirali family. Uneven settlement produced its present lean. The church's bronze angel was lost in the 1867 storm and replaced by an iron cross. Tiepolo's Crucifixion was restored in the early 2000s and exhibited at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in 2003 before returning to Burano. The parish is administered jointly with the neighbouring parish of Santi Pietro e Caterina on Mazzorbo.