The panoramas of Venice here were made in the summer of 2006. I was traveling with my wife and three daughters, not they with me, so I was not completely free to roam around the city for hours each day taking panorama shots wherever and whenever I chose. But there are now many panoramas, made by others, that show the big sites of Venice and the many other areas of the city of which I made no panoramas, and some that show panoramas taken at locations close to where I took mine.
The collection below starts near the entrance to the apartment we rented short-term near the Redentore Church on the island of Giudecca. Then there are several that show our neighborhood. The last three were shot in the San Tomà area in the northwest of the central area.
Venice: Apartment near Redentore Church (Giudecca)
on Giudecca just east of the church, off the Fondamenta Rio Croce
“Giudecca” may be an old word for “Jewry” or “Jewish Quarter”, though the original “ghetto” was elsewhere in Venice.
Venice: Fondamenta Rio Croce (Giudecca)
east of the Redentore church
The church in the distance across the water is the Salute.
14 Venice: View from Redentore Square (Giudecca)
The pointed tower in the distance at the right of the long-distance view is the campanile in the San Marco piazza.
The church across the water in the opening view (full screen) is Santa Maria del Rosario.
Venice: View from the Ristorante Redentor’ (Giudecca)
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Venice: View from the Fondamenta Rio Croce on Giudecca
east of Redentore Church
The tower in the far distance is the Campanile in the Piazza San Marco.
Venice: View from the Rio Croce Bridge on Giudecca
The string of lights and, at the ferry stop to the west, the temporary extension of the tie-up area, are in preparation for the annual Feast of the Redeemer (Festa del Redentore) in late July. It celebrates the abatement of the terrible plague of 1576, which killed 50,000 people.
The deaths of 50,000 people by plague in 1576, before which Venice had at most 200,000 people, constitute a death rate more than THREE HUNDRED times as great as what the US suffered during the COVID pandemic of 2020. The Black Death struck without regard to age or healthiness. Still, only sixteen years after the plague ended Venice was wealthy enough to build the magnificent Redentore church, whose rooftop cross is just visible above the nearby buildings to the west. At the time prayer was about as effective against the Plague as was medical care, and far cheaper.
Venice: View at Night from the Fondamenta S. Giovanni (Giudecca)
Barely discernible to the west at the top of the panorama is the bottom part of the dome of the church officially named Chiesa di Santa Maria della Presentazione, referring to the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. Like the Redentore (Redeemer) church further to the west on Giudecca, and the San Giorgio Maggiore church further to the east of the camera location, the Presentation Church is associated with the great Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). The three churches were parts of a plan to enhance the view from central Venice across the lagoon.
The common name of the church is Le Zitelle, “the maidens”, since it was part of a project to rescue poor girls who might otherwise have been forced into prostitution. The Zitelle almshouse has been converted into a luxury hotel, which probably values money over morality.
Venice: Campo San Tomà (St. Thomas Plaza)
The opening view, toward the northwest, is of the Scoletta (or Scuola) dei Caligheri, the Shoemakers’ School (brotherhood), once the home of the Shoemakers’ Corporation (guild). It now houses the Biblioteca San Tomà. The Guild acquired the Gothic structure in 1446.
In its basic form the San Tomà Church, to the southeast, dates to 1395, but the exterior is from several centuries later.
Venice: Campiello del Piovan and Campo San Tomà
The camera location and subject of the opening view is the Campiello (small plaza) de Piovan, where the parish priest (“piovan” in Venetian) once lived. The piovan had the keys to the well and had the duty of measuring the rainwater water in the reservoir below the well and rationing it during droughts.
Venice has several Campielli del Piovan, and other Italian cities have still others.
Venice: View from the Ponte de la Frescada
Probably not a square centimeter of Venice, not even an unassuming structure like the one which supported my tripod, camera, and self, has escaped the attentions of the historians. Apparently there is dispute about the origin of the name “Frescada”. Some trace it to an old family of that name, while others say it refers to the branches (”frascata”) and foliage that once were nearby. The standard Italian words for such branches and foliage are “frasche” and “frondi”. The word is found in the name of the bridge, and in those of a canal (rio), embankment (fondamenta), and street (calle).
Using an online program to translate the web page “https://www.conoscerevenezia.it/?p=33893” into English provides a reminder that machine translation is still less than perfect. The text begins “Wrongly the Dezan, and the continuer of the Berlan believe frescadacorruption of frascata, and they want the name to originate from the branches, or branches, that once green in the next vineyard of San Tomà”. To be fair, the translation is largely comprehensible, and it does improve considerably when the content becomes more detailed. Confusion returns momentarily, though, when the “branch” is used to render both frasche (foliage) and ramo (branch of a family).