Santi Giovanni e Paolo

About

The Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, known in Venetian as San Zanipolo, is a Catholic minor basilica and Dominican conventual church in the Castello sestiere of Venice, Italy. It is one of the largest churches in the city of Venice. After the 15th century the funeral services of all of Venice's doges were held here, and twenty-five doges are buried in the church.

The huge brick edifice was designed in the Italian Gothic style, and consecrated in the 1430. It is the principal Dominican church of Venice, and as such was built to hold large congregations. It is dedicated to John and Paul, not the Biblical Apostles of the same names, but two obscure martyrs of the Early Christian church in Rome, whose names were recorded in the 4th century but whose legend is of a later date.

In 1246, Doge Jacopo Tiepolo donated some swampland to the Dominicans after dreaming of a flock of white doves flying over it. The first church was demolished in 1333, when the current church was begun. It was not completed until 1430.

The vast interior contains many funerary monuments and paintings, as well as the Madonna della Pace, a miraculous Byzantine image situated in its own chapel in the south aisle, and a foot of Saint Catherine of Siena, the church's chief relic.

Santi Giovanni e Paolo is a parish church of the Vicariate of San Marco-Castello. Other churches of the parish are San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, the Ospedaletto and the Beata Vergine Addolorata.

The Renaissance Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (1483), by Andrea del Verrocchio, is located next to the church.

- Giovanni Bellini ( Saint Vincent Ferrer Altarpiece in the south aisle)

- Bartolomeo Bon (the great west doorway)

- Cima da Conegliano or Giovanni Martini da Udine ( Coronation of the Virgin in the south transept)

- Lorenzo Gramiccia ( Madonna del Rosario in Capella di Trinita)

- Piero di Niccolò Lamberti and Giovanni di Martino (tomb of Doge Tommaso Mocenigo in the north aisle)

- Pietro Lombardo (tombs of Doge Pietro Mocenigo [ it ] on the west wall and Doges Pasquale Malipiero and Nicolo Marcello in the north aisle; tomb of Alvise Diedo in the south aisle)

- Tullio Lombardo ( and Alessandro Leopardo ?) ( Funerary monument of Doge Andrea Vendramin [ it ] on the north wall of the choir)

- Lorenzo Lotto ( St Antoninus Giving Alms in the south transept)

- Rocco Marconi ( Christ between SS Peter and Andrew in the south transept)

- Giuseppe Maria Mazza (five large bronze reliefs depicting the miracles of Saint Dominic in the Chapel of San Dominico)

- Giovanni Battista Piazzetta ( St Dominic in Glory on the ceiling of the Capella di San Domenico)

- Alvise Tagliapietra, reliefs in the Chapel of the Rosary

Giovanni Bellini ( SS Vincent Ferrer, Christopher and Sebastian )

Cima da Conegliano Coronation of the Virgin