Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.
Showing posts with label Venice.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Venice.. Show all posts

Monday 12 August 2013

San Simeone Piccolo, Venice.


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.




Grand Canal, Venice: Looking South-West from the Chiesadegli Scalzi 
to the Fondamenta della Croce, with San Simeone Piccolo (on the left).
Current location: THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.
Illustration from ARTLOVER.ME

Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697 – 1768), better known as Canaletto (Italian: [kanaˈletto]), was an Italian painter of landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.
He was born in Venice as the son of the painter Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym, Canaletto ("little Canal"), and Artemisia Barbieri. Bernardo Bellotto was his nephew and pupil. Canaletto served his apprenticeship with his father and his brother. He began in his father's occupation, that of a theatrical scene painter. Canaletto was inspired by the Roman vedutista, Giovanni Paolo Pannini, and started painting the daily life of the city and its people.


San Simeone Piccolo (also called San Simeone e Giuda) is a Church in the sestiere of Santa Croce in Venice, Northern Italy. From across the Grand Canal, it faces the railroad terminal, serving as entry point for most visitors to the city.

Built in 1718-38, by Giovanni Antonio Scalfarotto, the Church shows the emerging eclecticism of Neo-Classical architecture. It accumulates academic architectural quotations, much like the contemporaneous Karlskirche in Vienna.

Wittkower, in his monograph, acknowledges San Simeone is modelled on the Pantheon, with a temple-front pronaoson the other hand, the peaked Dome recalls Longhena's more-embellished and prominent Santa Maria della Salute Church.


File:San Simeone Piccolo (Venice).jpg


English: San Simeone Piccolo
18th-Century. By architect Giovanni Antonio Scalfarotto 
and the Scuola dei Tessitori di Panni di Lana,Venice.
XVIIIe siècle par Giovanni Antonio Scalfarotto, 
et la Scuola dei Tessitori di Panni di Lana, Venise.
XVIII secolo dall'architetto Giovanni Antonio Scalfarotto 
e Scuola dei Tessitori di Panni di Lana,Venezia.
Photo: 23 November 2012.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)


The centralized circular Church design, and the metal Dome, recalls Byzantine models and San Marco, though the numerous centrifugal Chapels are characteristic of Post-Tridentine Churches.

This was one of the last Churches built in Venice, in one of its poorer sestieri.




The following paragraph is on the Video,
available on YouTube at

The Crucifix is housed in the right-hand aedicula entering our Church. We don't know where it was before 1559, but, since this date, it has been housed outside the Church, over a stone Altar, between the two Portals of the building, next to the main entrance. 
It was probably removed from there during (because of) the Revolution. The Church is the Saints Simon and Jude Church, in Venice (San Simeone Pìccolo), the very first Church that you can see in front of the railway station.

A Video of a Mass being said 
at the Church of San Simeone Piccolo, Venice, 
can also be seen at


The Pediment of the entrance has a Marble Relief, depicting "The Martyr-isation of the Saints" by Francesco Penso, known as "il Cabianca". Saint Simon was apparently the martyred cousin of Christ, martyred as a Jew by the Romans.

The Mass is celebrated according to the 1962 Roman Missal by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.


File:Giovanni Antonio Canal.jpg


Canaletto (1697–1768).
Date: 1754.
Source: Nndb.com.
Author: Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682–1754).
(Wikipedia Commons)


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