Castello area, Venice

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Scuola Grande di San Marco was built in 1260 by Confraternity of San Marco to act as its seat. The building, however, was destroyed by a big fire in 1485 and rebuilt in the very beginnings of the 16th century under the design of Pietro Lombardo. Its facade is a masterwork with nicely decorated niches and pilasters and adorned with white marble statues completed by Mauro Codussi. Three of the greatest Italian explorers of the 15th century; Barbaro, da Mosto e Contarini were members of this Scuola.
In the beginning of the 19th century, after fall of Napoleon, Habsburgs took the controll over the Venetian Republic and the Scuola became a military hospital. Nowadays it is a civil hospital of Venice.

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The main building (15th century) was once the granary of Venice.
The ground floor and the first two floors present the exploits and equipment of the Navy of Venice and of the Italian naval Fleet. The museum is owned by the Italian Navy so that the 19th and 20th century, with the commando raids by human torpedo's, are more represented than the Navy of the Venetian Republic itself.
On the first floor a room is dedicated to the Bucintoro, the ceremonial barge of the Dodge from which every year on Ascension Day he would throw a ring into the lagoon, symbolizing the marriage of Venice to the sea. There are also models of ancient ships as well as a small ceremonial galley. In other rooms are shown models of commercial ships of the 20th century.
The third floor contains models and objects from gondolas, fishing boats and other vessels from the Venetian lagoon.
A room shows models of oriental junks; another one is dedicated to the Swedish navy and finally a room contains a collection of shells. These rooms, obviously, have nothing to do with the "Serenissima"!
Besides the main building the Ship Pavilion houses some Venetian boats among which a parade galley of 18 oars the "Scalea Reale".
Actually this museum disappoints the visitors who came for the navy of Venice, a navy which from the 12th to the 16th century dominated the Adriatic and the Oriental Mediterranean Sea. The navy of the Serenissima and its maritime power is finally not much represented.
It is disappointing all the more as at the time of its glory Venice maintained permanently a hundred galleys plus the merchant ships.
The museum does not show much of this. No battle galley was preserved, you do not find here historic vessels as the "Mary Rose" or "Victory" in Portsmouth, nor a replica like in the Netherlands with the commercial vessel "Amsterdam" of the VOC exposed at the maritime museum of Amsterdam.
The amateur who wants to see galleys will even see more impressive ones in the maritime museums of Barcelona or Lisbon-Belem.

Open: Monday to Friday 8.45 - 13.30 h; Saturday 8.45 - 13h.
Closed on Sundays and Holidays.
Price (2011): 1,55 €, reduced 0,77€.

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San Zanipolo was my most favourite church in Venezia (well, apart from the Basilica, but this is another world). I still don’t know why, maybe because she is so big and so suffused with light inside. And maybe as there are only a few benches inside, which might make the church seem to be bigger as she is. But on the other hand, she is the biggest in Venezia anyhow. Built between 1330 and 1450, she was the church of Domenican Order and is named after two martyrs of 250 AD (and not, as one would think, after two of the apostles). Oh, I should mention that “Zanipolo” means Santi Giovanni e Paolo, but the short version Zanipolo is very much typical local dialect – contracting and shortening words.
The church’s outside is very simple, brown brick and except the later built entrance portal has almost no decoration – reflecting the Domenicans’ life of privation. Inside, she has two chapels on each side and four apses around the main apse in the east. It is well worth to spend some time inside San Zanipolo, as it was here where the processions ended since 14th century when a doge has died. San Zanipolo is final resting place for 27 doges and nicely shows the development in tomb building – from simple ones to opulently decorated ones of Baroque style.
As space is not enough to describe the glory of this church in only one tip, I’ll expand on the next ones.

Opening hours: daily from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., except during masses of course.
Admission: 2,50 €, but note that San Zanipolo is not included in the Chorus Pass. Some travel books however metion that she would be included, but she is not on the Chorus Pass list

Holy masses are held on weekdays 8:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. as well as on Sundays and holidays on 8:30 a.m., 11.00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

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Chiesa San Zanipolo is marvellous inside. I can only highly recommend not to race through her, as you might miss one of the many treasures she holds. I stayed in there for nearly 3 hours and came back to see more. Also, the timing should be considered, as I found it quite fascinating to be inside around noon on a sunny day – the light painted the most marvellous effects on the anyhow fantastic marble grounds (photo 3).
If you come inside the church, take some moments and just stand there and look around: this will give you an idea how big she really is.
On the right hand side there is a big early Renaissance triptych, depicting San Vincenzo Ferrer (photo 3). He was a Spanish Dominican mendicant in 14th century. The triptych is said to be made by Bellini, but some art historicans doubt that.
Further to the right are three side chapels; the most interesting and artistic I found is Cappella di San Domenico with a marvellous ceiling fresco showing the apotheosis of San Domenico (photo 1). In the little side chapel next to it is an icon of Madonna della Pace, which was given to the Domenicans in 14th century and which is said to have miraculous powers. On the left side is the famous Cappella del Rosario (photo 5), which was built in 1582 as a votive chapel to celebrate the famous victory in Battle of Lepanto. Originally, Tintoretto has contributed with paintings, but these were destroyed during a fire in 1867 and have been replaced with paintings by Veronese. Try and go into this chapel during midday or a bit earlier, when the sun paints magic lights & shadows on the magnificent multicoloured marble floor.
While most of Venezia’s churches don’t have that much of stained glass windows, Zanipolo has one, in the southern transept (photo 4). It was of course made in Murano and shows many bible scenes and also St. George killing the dragon.

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Earlier I already mentioned that San Zanipolo is the final resting place for 27 of Venezia’s doges and thus seen as Venezia’s Pantheon (some sources say 25 tombs, but to be honest, I didn’t count myself, but trust the author of my art guidebook). Since 14th century, all burial ceremonies for the doges ended here and the tombs are somehow a reflection of Venezia’s history and the development in tomb building in the context of architectural styles. While the first tomb (of Giovanni Dolfin, 1361, left hand side at the altar section) is a very much simple sarcophagus, the one of the Valiero family (Silvestro, his wife Elisabetta and his father Bertuccio) is of pompous size and almost theatrelike decoration (photo 4). The tombs are built in a way to show the respective doge’s power: the early tombs are more peaceful with the doges resting = lying on the sarcophagus and the tombs are somehow soaring at the wall. With the tomb of Pietro Mocenigo (main photo) the building style changes to a mausoleumlike style, which is also the start of Venezia’s own High Renaissance period. The doges are now standing on their sarcophagi, some with a very authoritative expression.
The maybe most famous doge, Leonardo Loredan (which most of us know from the portrait) is also buried here, right hand side of the altar.

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When I approached Venezia from the northern side, first I was mislead by a belltower which I thought was the Campanile, but it wasn’t. It was the campanile of chiesa San Franceso della Vigna, in Castellos northeast. I never heard of this church before but my walk through Castello’s north lead me there. I was amazed by its façade, which looks a bit like a greek temple (see photo in the link below; somehow I forgot to take a photo of the whole façade), Palladio’s first work in Venezia. This church has a quite interesting story. Legends say that San Marco (St. Mark the Evangelist, Venezia’s patron saint) once landed here in a stormy night and an angel appeared and greeted him with the words Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus (peace with you, o Mark, my Evangelist), which we all know from the countless depictions of San Marco lion – it is written on the book he holds in his paws. Once a vinyard stood here, hence the name “della vigna”.
Inside, it is filled with rich artwork, as I have read: Veronese paintings, a madonna by Giovanni Bellini and relief work of Pietro Lombardo. I didn’t go inside in May (obviously didn’t make my homework properly), so I cannot say anthing about opening times. It is not included in the Chorus Pass.
But if you go, you should also look at the cloister in the north of the church. It is said to to be overgrown with plants and tendrils, and given the view on GoogleEarth it must indeed look nice. It seems that there is still a vineyard and a garden (Google Earth) but it is not accessible from the outside.

Next to the church is a building which is easily been overlooked, but all fans of the TV series of Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti will immediately recognise it as the Questura, where he works. But this is another story, for the off path section (and not yet done).

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And now my most favourite museum of all Venezia – the Museo Storico Navale. If you are interested in the city herself, how she became what she was and is, a visit to this museum is a MUST. But do plan this visit in advance as the museum has very strange opening hours. It is closed on Sundays and on the other days it is only open until 1:30 p.m. And do visit the museum’s website beforehand to know which floors you would like to see. It is in Italian only but quite easy to read: piano = floor and “mouse over” the pink spots shows photos of the exhibits in each floor and section.
The museum is located in La Serenissima’s former granary and belongs to the Italian Navy. On 5 floors it shows literally everything connected to Venezia and her naval past. What I found most fascinating are the old prints with aerial views of the city and of course the old gondolas. But the best of all is the replica of the Bucintoro, the glorious doge’s galley, the one with which the doges sailed out into the sea to celebrate Venezia’s marriage with the sea. The replica is approx. 3-4 m long and sits in a glass cabinet (careful when you take photos! Switch off the flash – I almost got blinded because I forgot) and carved or modelled very much elaborate! I almost forgot to move on, while I kept looking and discovering more details.
On the other floors you will see old ship laterns (ground floor), figureheads and old ships and the Bucintoro (first floor), nautical instruments and clothes (second floor), old gondolas, including Peggy Guggenheim’s and very interesting descriptions and models of how gondolas are built (in English as well, third floor), a collection of all different kinds of sea shells and plants (fourth floor) and the Swedish section with information about Venezia’s connection to Sweden (between third and fourth floor).

But the best of all is the entrance fee: as low as 1,55 € !!!
Opening hours:: Mo-Fri: 8:45 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., Sat: 8:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Sundays and holidays closed

As this museum fascinated me most, I took tons of photos and have added two more albums about the Bucintoro and the museum in general. Only photos at the moment, and more explanations when I have time :-)

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This is a very nice place where it's easy to relax away from the crowd of tourists.
Here le galere and later le gondole used to be built, today close to L' Arsenale there is located The Navy Museum (il Museo Storico Navale di Venezia).
This neighborhood can be reached on foot walking from Piazza San Marco (about 10min walk)