San Nicolò dei Mendicoli

Tuesday 7 March 2023

This beautiful church is off the beaten track, at the western end of Venice. The closest vaporetto stop is at Santa Marta, by the cruise terminal, where there are cars parked on the nearby street, so you might prefer to go to the church on foot, or use the San Basilio vaporetto stop, which is almost as close, to avoid the intrusion of motorised road traffic.

The interior is dark, but seems to glow because of the extensive gilding in decoration of the upper walls, above the level of the columns, and the light they reflect from the windows. The walls are lined with paintings, none of them by famous artists, and quite a few where the artists are unknown. This is probably another reason why the church is not on the main tourist trail.

It’s intriguing that such a beautiful church served a community that was relatively poor. No patricians are buried in within it. How did it come to be built and decorated in such a way as to produce this effect?