Campo della Maddalena Historical Timeline

Origins

An oratory belonging to the noble Balbo family stood on this site by at least 1155, on or near the grounds of the family's former castle, Castel Baffo. After one of Venice's wars against Genoa ended in 1356, the Senate ordered annual public celebrations in honor of St. Mary Magdalene, and the building was enlarged for the purpose, with a tower added that later became its campanile.

Turning points

The altars were rebuilt in 1701 under the parish priest Francesco Riccardi, but a much larger transformation came later in the century: in 1763, the old church was demolished and rebuilt to a strikingly unconventional design by the architect Tommaso Temanza, who modeled it on the Roman Pantheon. Temanza died in 1789 before the work was finished; his collaborator Giannantonio Selva completed it the following year.

Influential people

Temanza's design gave Venice a genuine rarity: a church circular on the outside and hexagonal inside, with four radial chapels -- one of only two circular churches anywhere in the city, alongside San Simeone Piccolo near the train station. Temanza himself is buried inside the building he designed.

Cultural evolution

Napoleonic administration stripped the church of its parish status in 1810, and by 1820 it functioned only as an oratory rather than a full parish church. Its freestanding bell tower was demolished around 1888, leaving the domed rotunda as the building's only vertical landmark today.

Present-day significance

The church now falls under the parish of San Marcuola. Directly across the square, the Gothic Palazzo Magno still displays its own notable portal -- a relief of St. Magno of Oderzo holding a church and gospel, flanked by two angels -- giving the small campo two genuinely distinctive buildings facing each other.