CHURCH OF MUNEGHETTE – Wikipedia

The church of the muneghette – Actually entitled A Jesus and Mary – He was, together with his convent, a small religious complex in Venice, located in the field of wool in the Sestiere di Santa Croce, not far from the churches of San Simeon Piccolo and the demolished one of the cross,

The complex was founded by Angela Maria Pasqualigo (1562-1652). The woman, orphaned at an early age, had been led to Candia by the uncle named the governor by the Republic of Venice. From here, after taking the votes in the monastery of Santa Caterina, he returned to Venice. In 1622, recovered some family properties, equipped to found the small convent under the San’Agostino rule. The patriarch Giovanni Tiepolo blessed the convent and the first oratory in 1623. The cloistered rules were recognized and officially authorized by Pope Innocent X in 1647 ^[first] .

The convent was closed and the church stripped following the Napoleonic decrees of 1806, however the nuns managed to return to it in 1821. The complex abandoned by the Augustinian, on an unspecified date, to move to the convent of Mestre, and fell in ruin was demolished After the end of the Second World War to make way for new civil construction ^[2] .

We do not remain many historical images of the building, being the closed and poor area where it was inserted of less interest for the westernists. On the other hand, there is a more recent illustration (about 1847) by Giovanni Prividor, rather reliable given the correspondences with an existing rare photography but taken up with a more restricted corner field. Apart from the clues of the short bell tower and thermal windows, a reconstruction of the orientation of the Church and the possible facade is not possible.

The rather simple interior had three altars. On the main altar there was a building by Pietro Mera called the Flemish (1570 C-1645) which represented the Madonna and Child Venerated by the kneeling figures of a pope, an emperor, a doge and a cardinal. The position of the other three palaties of the Mera is not clear ( Santa Caterina , the Escape to Egypt and the Madonna and Child and St. John ) and the canvas of Domenico Tintoretto, perhaps one Holy Family with Saints Giovannino and Anna ^[3] . To these were added, according to the publication of Zanetti’s 1733, a “picture of the manner of Gian Bellino” over a door, the ceiling and other paintings on the walls of Angelo Venturini, a pupil of the crossbow ^[4] .

Works that were all disappeared at the return of the nuns in 1821 so that two new blatant alcoholic blades were forced to commission ^[2] .

• Alvise Zorzi, Venice disappeared , 2nd ed., Milan, Electa, 1984 [1972] , p. 203.
• Umberto Franzoi and Dina Di Stefano, The churches of Venice , Venice, Alfieri, 1976, p. 79.
• Francesco Sansovino and Giustiniano Martinioni [with addition of], Venetia Very noble and singular city described in XIIII Books by M. Francesco Sansovino , Venice, Steffano Curti, 1663.
• Marco Boschini, The rich mines of Venetian painting , Venice, Francesco Nicolini, 1674.
• Flaminio Corner, Historical news of the churches and monasteries of Venice, and Torcello … , Padova, Giovanni manfrè, 1758.
• Antonio Maria Zanetti, Description of all the public paintings of the city of Venice and Circonvicine islands: or is the renewal of the rich mines of Marco Boschini, with the addition of all the works, which came out from 1674. Until this 1733. , Venice, Pietro Bassaglia at the sign of Salamandra, 1733.
• Stranger enlightened around the rarest, and curious, ancient, and modern things of the city of Venice, and of the Isle Circonvicine , Venice, Giambatista Albrizzi, 1740.
• Antonio Maria Zanetti (1706-17719), Of the Venetian painting and the public works of the Venetians Masters Books V , Venice, Albrizzi, 1771.