LOMBARDO, Pietro
(b. ca. 1435, Carona, d. 1515, Venezia)

Santa Maria dei Miracoli: Façade and left side

1481-89
Photo
Campo dei Miracoli, Venice

A precious jewel box of a building, the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli was erected by local citizens to house a miracle-working image of the Madonna. The exterior revetment, composed of carefully balanced rectangles, arches, and circles, evokes the splendour of Venice's most important civic church, St Mark's. Porphyry placed to either side of the doorway and fashioned into cruciform patterns and decorative roundels higher up on the façade confirm the church's high status, as does the use of the lavish Corinthian and Ionic orders, playfully rendered and positioned without regard to classical rules that expected the Corinthian, not the Ionic order, to occupy the upper story. Carvings of griffins and sea creatures mingle equally freely with busts of saints and angels.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.