Map
oriented to north
(Jpg:
Chiese
di Venezia)
Giovanni
Battista Tiepolo
The
Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew
1722
Oil
on canvas
San
Stae, Venice |
|
The Church of San Stae
Jpg: Philip
Greenspun
View looking south from the grand
canal.
From: Timeout.com
`San Stae' is the Venetian
version of Sant' Eustachio or Eustace, a martyr saint who was converted
to Christianity by the vision of a stag with a crucifix between his antlers
(St Hubert, as it happens, had a very similar experience). This church
on the Grand Canal has a dramatic late baroque façade (1709) by
Swiss-born architect Domenico Rossi. The form is essentially
Palladian but it is enlivened by a number of vibrant sculptures, some apparently
on the point of leaping straight out of the façade.
Venice's last great blaze
of artistic glory came in the eighteenth century, and the interior is a
temple to this swansong. On the side-walls of the Chancel, all the leading
painters operating in Venice in 1722 were asked to pick an apostle, any
apostle. The finest of these are: left wall, lower row: Tiepolo's Martyrdom
of St Bartholomew 
and Sebastiano Ricci's The Liberation of St Peter, perhaps his best work;
right wall, lower row: Pellegrini's Martyrdom of St Andrew and Piazzetta's
Martyrdom of St James, a disturbingly realistic work showing the saint
as a confused old man in the hands of a loutish youth. (timeout.com)
Notes:
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