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San
Giuliano, or Zulian, is not a parish church
but a vicariate. Its restoration by The
Venice in Peril Fund will, it is hoped,
enable it to become an alternative venue
to the Basilica of San Marco for concerts
of a religious nature. San Giuliano has
another peculiarity: despite being in the
most densely-built part of Venice, it is
the only church in the city to be completely
free-standing, with no other structures
attached to it. The present building, designed
by Jacopo Sansovino, is the third to occupy
the site since the church was founded in
about 830ad.
The comprehensive repairs by Venice in Peril
began in 1989 with the façade and
have continued within the church. The façade
was commissioned in 1553 by Tommaso Rangone,
a doctor and philosopher from Ravenna, but
many of the interior works of art date from
after his death in 1577. The pale front
of Istrian stone against which his bronze
statue stands is one of several contemporary
façades in Venice which were also
celebrative monuments to the patrons who
commissioned them. Intended at first as
an independent work, it received the statue
in 1557, several years before the decision
was taken to rebuild the three-aisled medieval
church behind it as a Renaissance cube.
This façade was cleaned, consolidated
and subsequently protected against pigeons
in 1989-92.
The conservation of the Chapel of the Holy
Sacrament, with its stuccoed vault and gilded
medallions by Alessandro Vittoria, and Girolamo
Campagna's relief of the Pietà and
statues of the Virgin Mary and St John the
Evangelist in terracotta painted to simulate
bronze, was completed in 1994. The Gaetano
Callido organ of 1764, together with the
organ loft and the spiral stairs leading
up to it, were restored in 1994-96. Restoration
of the high altar, with its two wooden polychrome
statues of saints which, after removal of
overpaint, can now be seen in their original
colours, was completed in 1996. All this
work was made possible by a most generous
gift to the Fund by Mr Stanley Seeger.
DIRECTION OF WORKS: Superintendency for
the Artistic and Historical Heritage
CONSERVATORS:
Façade: Alessandri srl
Chapel of the Holy Sacrament: Arkè
High altar and organ loft: Maristella Volpin
Organ: Francesco Zanin |
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