S. Maria dei Miracoli, Venezia

Speranza



The church of S. Maria dei Miracoli in Venezia was built in 1481-6 by Pietro Lombardo, one of a family who impressed their personality on Venetian architecture.

The church takes its name from a miracle-working mage of the Virgin which belonged to a wealthy merchant of the city, Francesco Amadi.

With its marble casing and its circular ornaments composed of porphyry discs and intersectding borders, it is informed by sensitivity to the character of the place in which it stands as well as by knowledge of classical antiquity.

S. Maria dei Miracoli is adorned with arcading of a more severely classical type than the arcading of Romanesque and Gothic churches but it preserves the wheel-window of an earlier tradition.

Although the facciata, desgined in two strongly defined stages, does not wholly correspond to the church interior, which consists of but a single storey, it faithfully reflects the structure of the building, which is aisleless and crowned by a semicircular roof.

The decorative motifs are continued on all four walls of the church so that it looks like a jewel-studded casket.