Campo Zanipolo (Saints John and Paul)
Campo San Zanipolo (skrót od Saints John and Paul) it is the most beautiful square in Venice after Piazza. The great brick Zanipolo church towers over it, from which the name of the square comes. There is also the Scuola Grande with the most striking facade and one of the finest Renaissance horse statues in Italy.
MONUMENT OF COLLEONI AND SCUOLA GRANDA DI SAN MARCO Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni began his incredibly capricious career in the year 1429 in the Venetian army. In the following years, he fled to Milan, later he returned to Venice, ran away again and finally in a year 1455 permanently joined the Venetian army. However, he was unlucky, for then there was a longer period of peace, and in the last twenty years of his life he was called to serve only once. In his will, he left a considerable fortune to the Venetian Republic, provided, that his statue would be erected in the square in front of San Marco. Rulers of Venice, who professed a kind of cult of anonymity in the San Marco area, they could not agree to this request and handled the problem very cleverly, though not very honestly. Interpreting the will in a way that is favorable to you, wznieśli pomnik przed St Mark's Great School, and not in front of the basilica, and grabbed the money.
He won the competition for the monument in a year 1481 Andrew Verocchio, but it was not the end of the difficulties. When he finished his horse, the news had come to him, that another sculptor was asked to make the rider, he got so upset about it, that he destroyed the effect of his previous work and fled to Florence. The dispute was eventually eased and at the time of his death, in June 1488, Verocchio was still working on the monument. Alessandro Leopardi was asked to complete the work and make the pedestal, who readily agreed to it, and even put his signature on the girth, giving himself the title del Cavallo.
A rather heterogeneous background for the Colleoni monument is the Scuola Grande di San Marco, whose facade and foyer since its liquidation at the beginning of. The 19th century is decorated with the Ospedale Civile. The facade was started by Piętro Lombardo and Giovanni Buora in the year 1487, and after their quarrel with Scuola he finished it in the year 1495 Mauro Coducci. Fragments of the façade are more impressive than its entirety: the individual scenes made by Tullio and Antonio Lombardo do not produce the intended spatial effect, but each of them has its undoubted charm.
SAN ZANIPOLO (SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL)
The Church of San Zanipolo was founded in 1246 by the Dominican Order, its extension and reconstruction began in just a year 1333, and was only consecrated in a year 1430. Outside, on the left side of the door, the sarcophagus of Doge Giacomo Tiepolo was placed, who offered this place to the Dominicans.
The interior impresses primarily with its size: 87 meters in length, 37,5 one meter wide in the transept, 32,4 meter high at the center. Now it seems even bigger than a year ago 1682, when it was demolished placed in a similar place, as in Frari, wooden choir. The simplicity of the three-nave Gothic interior is disturbed by a huge number of sarcophagi and tombstones placed under the walls (are buried here, among others. 25 doges).
The west wall is dedicated to the Mocenigo family. Above the entrance is made by Pietra Lombardo (1477) tomb of Doge Alvise Mocenigo and his wife, on the right a statue of the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo (d. 1485) by Tullia Lombardo, and on the left the wonderful work of Pietro Lombardo and his sons, statue of the Doge Pietro Mocenigo (d. 1476).
Behind the first altar in the southern aisle there is a statue of the Venetian commander, Marcantonio Bragadina, which is associated with one of the more gloomy stories of this city. In year 1571 Bragadin was outsmarted by the Turks, to whom he was forced to surrender Famagusta. After his arrest, he was held in prison, tortured, subjected to humiliation, and finally killed by skinning. A few years later, his skin was brought to Venice and today it is in an urn high above the floor.
The next altar is adorned with a magnificent polyptych by Giovanni Bellini, which shows St.. Vincent Ferrer together with St.. Christopher and St. Sebastian, and above the Annunciation and the Pietà (the picture frames are original). In the corner of the transept there is a relic of the foot of St.. Catherine of Siena. Most of her body is in Rome, head in the monastery of Siena, one foot here, and other small relics are scattered all over Italy.
The southern part of the transept is decorated with a painting by Alvise Vivarini, Christ carrying the cross (1474) and the canvas of Lorenzo Lotto Saint Anthony (1542). The latter painting was painted by Lotto only in return for material costs and the right to be buried in this church, but the jealousy and intrigues of other painters (including Titian) led to his expulsion from the city (he was buried in the monastery of Loreto).
On the right side of the presbytery there is the tomb of Doge Michele Morosini (d. 1382), which was recognized by Ruskin as the greatest monument of the Venetian Gothic. Opposite the sarcophagus of Doge Andrea Vendramina (d. 1478) however, it received a negative assessment, m.in. Which is why, that the artist carved only this half of the deceased's head, which could be seen by those passing below, which for Ruskin was evidence of "the final intellectual and moral decline”. The criticized sculptor was probably Tullio Lombardo, who were helped by others (perhaps father and brother).
Located at the northern end of the transept, Cappella del Rosario stayed in the year 1867 completely destroyed by fire, whose victims were, among others. Tintoretto's paintings, Palmy the Younger i innych. They were replaced by others, among which the vault paintings and the Adoration of Veronese are the best.
The greatest attraction of the northern aisle is the tombstone of the Doge Pasquale Malipiero, located to the left of the door to the sacristy. (d. 1462). This work by Pietra Lombardo is one of the earliest examples of the Renaissance style in Venice.