Santa Maria dei Miracoli
Open: Mon-Sat: 10-17.
Looking remarkably like a richly embellished jewellery box, the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli was built at the end of the 15th century to house a devotional image of the Virgin and Child, which, it was believed, worked miracles.
The sculptor Pietro Lombardo and his sons, Antonio and Tullio, laboured away at the church from 1481 until 1489. No expense was spared in the use of materials; both the exterior and the interior are clad with expensive marble revetments.
The interior is made up of a single barrel-vaulted nave, which is approached beneath a galleried choir. The gilded barrel vault is adorned with fifty wooden panels bearing the heads of prophets and saints, the work of Pier Maria Pennacchi (1528). The nave is separated from the choir and the domed apse by an elegant balustrade.
The altar is reached by an ornamental marble staircase. John Ruskin grudgingly praised the sculptures as 'the best possible example of a bad style'.
The sculptor Pietro Lombardo and his sons, Antonio and Tullio, laboured away at the church from 1481 until 1489. No expense was spared in the use of materials; both the exterior and the interior are clad with expensive marble revetments.
The interior is made up of a single barrel-vaulted nave, which is approached beneath a galleried choir. The gilded barrel vault is adorned with fifty wooden panels bearing the heads of prophets and saints, the work of Pier Maria Pennacchi (1528). The nave is separated from the choir and the domed apse by an elegant balustrade.
The altar is reached by an ornamental marble staircase. John Ruskin grudgingly praised the sculptures as 'the best possible example of a bad style'.
