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The Basilica of Glorious Saint Mary of the Friars (Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari), or Basilica of the Friars (Basilica dei Frari) for short, is an important church in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Venice, Italy. It’s located in the San Polo district and well worth visiting for its impressive funerary monuments and artwork.
History
The Basilica of the Friars was built between 1250 and 1338 on land donated by Doge Jacopo Tiepolo. The bell tower, completed in 1396, is the second tallest in the city after the Campanile of Saint Mark’s Basilica.
Visiting
Admission to the church is €5 (as of August 2023). Audio tours are available in five languages at the entrance for a small fee. It’s open daily and photography is allowed without flash.
Nave
As soon as I entered the dimly lit building, I was taken aback by the sheer size of it. It doesn’t look nearly as big from the outside, but the open space of the nave and huge columns just inside the doors weren’t expected. Besides that, there’s so much to see that it’s easy to miss a lot of the important works. In this entry, I only cover the ones that caught my eye.
Monuments
The first features I noticed were the tombs and monuments lining the sides and the rear of the nave. To the rear are several different tombs surrounding the entrance. On the left is the monument to Alvise Pasqualigo (d. 1528), who was a Procurator of San Marco. On the right is the monument to Pietro Bernardo (d. 1538) by sculptor Tullio Lombardo. Above the entrance is the monument to Girolamo Garzoni, who died in the siege of Negroponte (the island of Euboea in Greece) in 1688. Above the monuments are paintings depicting the Stories of the Franciscan Saints by Flaminio Floriano.
On the right aisle of the nave is the grand monument to Italian painter Titian (c. 1488-1576). It was commissioned by Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I in 1838 and was carved by Luigi and Pietro Zandomeneghi between 1843 and 1852. Because it was completed under Austrian rule, the monument features the Lion of Saint Mark clutching the Habsburg coat of arms.
On the left aisle of the nave is the pyramid tomb of sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822). It was completed in 1827.
To the right of Canova’s tomb is the monument to Doge Giovanni Pesaro (1589-1659). He was the 103rd Doge of Venice, serving from 1658 until his death a year later. The monument was completed in 1669 and features four gigantic moors on the bottom supporting the rest of the monument. A statue of Pesaro addressing the crowd from a throne flanked by dragons is at the center.
Choir
Next, I visited the choir, which is separated from the nave by an impressive marble septo created by Pietro Lombardo and his workshop in 1475. It features relief busts of the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament.
The choir is a magnificent work carved by Francesco and Marco Cozzi of Vicenza completed in 1468. There are 124 stalls and the organs sit above them.
Apse
Just past the choir is the apse, which contains a painting of The Assumption by Titian, completed between 1516 and 1518 and framed in marble. It was removed from the church in 1817 and bounced around a bit before returning to its original place on August 13, 1945. To the left is the tomb of Doge Nicolò Tron (c. 1399-1473) created by Antonio Rizzo of Verona between 1476 and 1480. To the right is the tomb of Doge Francesco Foscari (1373-1457) created by Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino in 1457.
Sacristy
The entrance to the sacristy is surrounded by more monuments. To the left of the entrance is the equestrian monument to Paolo Savelli, a Venetian general who died of the plague in 1405 during the siege of Padua. It was carved out of wood in the first quarter of the 15th century and attributed to Jacopo della Quercia. To the right is the monument to Blessed Pacificus (1424-1482), originally created in 1437 for Scipione Bon by Nanni di Bartolo. Above the entrance is the monument to Benedetto Pesaro (1430-1503), who was the commander-in-chief of the Venetian navy. It was created in 1503 by Lorenzo and Giambattista Bregno.
Inside the sacristy are a few impressive paintings, but the most important is the Madonna with Child and Saints by Giovanni Bellini in 1488, which sits on the altar.
Just opposite the entrance is the Altar of the Relics, which was created in 1711 by Francesco Penso. It holds a crystal vase supposedly containing a few drops of Christ’s blood collected by Mary Magdalene. The relic originally belonged to a church in Constantinople.
Chapter House
Finally, inside the chapter house, where the friars held meetings, is the monument to Doge Francesco Dandolo (d. 1339). It contains a painting created by Paolo Veneziano in 1339 depicting Saint Francis and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary presenting the Doge and his wife to the Virgin. The sarcophagus, which was once covered entirely in gold, contains a relief of the Death of the Virgin surrounded by the apostles. This monument is the last remaining of what were once many monuments in the chapter house.
From the chapter house I was also able to peek through a window into the cloister.
Campo dei Frari
The Basilica of the Friars is located on Campo dei Frari, which is surrounded by historic buildings and has a canal running along the east side.
