Description

Essentials about San Zaccaria in brief

San Zaccaria is a church dedicated to St. Zacharias, which belonged to a nunnery of the same name. It is located in the Castello district, not far from Piazza San Marco. San Zaccaria is one of the most beautiful churches in Venice. Especially the beautiful Renaissance painting “Sacra Conversazione” by Giovanni Bellini is a visitor magnet.

The history of San Zaccaria

The Convent of San Zaccaria, along with the Convent of San Lorenzo, was the oldest and most important of the Venetian nunneries, where the rich Venetians placed their unmarried daughters, equipped with a good dowry. The alleged foundation of the convent by the Byzantine Emperor Leo V is a legend. Rather, the monastery was probably founded in the 9th century by the Venetian Doge Giustiniano, in whose will of 828/829 it is first mentioned.

The convent was richly endowed, especially in the city of Venice itself, where it had a large property of land and houses and maintained close relations with the Doges. During the secularization by Napoleon, the monastery buildings were converted into barracks, now used by the Carabinieri. The church was not affected by the secularization and still serves as a parish church.

The architecture of San Zaccaria

The decorative facade of the church was begun around 1458 by Antonio Gambelli and completed from 1483 by Mauro Codussi in the last two decades of the 15th century. The large newer church building joins an older predecessor building of 1440 on the left. The two churches, however, do not stand isolated next to each other, but merge into each other, as occasionally happened. The left aisle of the older church was transformed into the right aisle of the higher younger church. This later building is actually Gothic in its present form – hence the height – but this is hardly noticeable on the outside. This is due to the fact that the basic Gothic pattern of the facade is dominated by the Renaissance motifs of the upper half of the facade. The three-nave nave and the polygonal choir were already laid out in the first construction phase.

The painting “Sacra Conversazione”

The main attraction of the church and at the same time one of the most beautiful Renaissance paintings ever is the “Sacra Conversazione” by Giovanni Bellini from 1505. Bellini is the main master of the Venetian early Renaissance. He became famous in art history for the bright, warm colors of his paintings, which have lost none of their luster to this day. On the one hand, Bellini’s painting is an example of the principles according to which paintings were composed in the Renaissance, and on the other hand, even in this early painting, a fusion of colors and the effect of plasticity through color alone, typical of Venetian painting, can be demonstrated.

One of the main problems that the painters of the time faced in theory and practice was the representation of a plausible space on a flat surface with the help of central perspective. One prefers a clear, uncluttered order of the painting through distinct horizontal and vertical elements, such as the architecture in the painting or through the upright standing persons on the emphatically horizontal ground and through clearly separated individual motifs.

In Bellini’s work, the painted architecture is not a mere background foil, but sets its own counter-accents to the front group of saints. The upper part of the painting, with its elaborate depiction of niche architecture, picks up on the actual picture frame for which it was conceived and in which it still resides today. If you look closely, you will notice that the two pilasters on the very outside and the overarching arch are not painted. This is already the church wall. So the painting makes direct reference to the architecture of the church.

The painting is strictly symmetrical: The center of the painting is clearly emphasized by Mary sitting on a throne and by the angel playing music at her feet. The two groups of people on the sides are symmetrically arranged up to the head position of the women. Depicted are the apostle Peter in his typical colors of yellow and blue, his key and a book, the church father Jerome dressed in red, behind him Saint Lucia of Syracuse with the glass in which her two eyes are swimming and finally Saint Catherine with the martyr’s palm and the symbol of her martyrdom, the wheel. Bellini shows his figures with great calm and moderation, each one a tectonic structure in itself. The picture is evenly lit and the motifs are carefully distributed over the picture surface – and all this in wonderfully bright colors.

Website

turismovenezia.it/Chiesa-di-San-Zaccaria

Opening hours

Admission fees

Free.

Address

Getting there

By public transport:

Vaporetto lines 4.1, 4.2, 5.2, 7, B, N and R: Stop S. Zaccaria

By car:

Inaccessible.