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The
church of San Francesco della Vigna takes
its name from a vineyard left to the newly-founded
Order of St Francis in 1253. The medieval
aisled church built on the site was replaced
in 1534 by Doge Andrea Gritti and Brother
Francesco Zorzi, the mathematician and philosopher;
their ideas were embodied in this, the largest
of Jacopo Sansovino's new churches. The
projected façade was not however
built, and so in 1564 Cardinal Giovanni
Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia, commissioned
another design from Andrea Palladio. Completed
in 1570, this Doric-Corinthian monumental
façade was the first of three church
façades in Venice on which Palladio
explored his ideas of interlocking pediments
and orders of pilasters.
Venice in Peril's restoration in 1994 revealed,
as had earlier work in 1829, that this towering
façade of Istrian stone required
considerable work to prevent it becoming
detached from the body of the church. After
stabilisation the entire façade was
washed, and the black incrustations removed
with biological packs and micro-sandblasting.
Conservation work was also done on the bronze
statues of Moses and St Paul by Tiziano
Aspetti, which were commissioned under Grimani's
will in 1592. The restored façade
was inaugurated on 4 October 1995, the feast
of St Francis.
In 1996 the altar in the Grimani chapel
of 1537 (the first in the left aisle) and
its altarpiece, probably by Battista Franco,
were restored jointly by the Private Committees
for Venice in memory of Sir Ashley Clarke.
DIRECTION OF WORKS: Superintendency for
the Environmental and Architectural Heritage
CONSERVATORS
Façade: Consorzio Marciano
Chapel: Ernesta Vergani |
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