G.B. Tiepolo Ceiling ...

... at the Gesuati--an18th century church in Venice.  It is considerably  later then most of the religious architecture in the city. It's also unusual in that it was constructed in a thirty-year period and thus has remained largely unaltered since, thus retaining a strong unity of style.  The frescoed ceiling is by Giovanni-Batista Tiepolo, the century's greatest Venetian painter; It may be the most beautiful church ceiling in Venice (the extra gives a broader view).  

Using a few more hours of our 48-hour boat pass (see yesterday's blipcomment), we visited  two more churches--the Redentore, captured in yesterday's blip and San Giorgio Maggiore. The Redentore was much the more appealing of the two; from the 16th century it retains at least as unity of style as the Gesuati, with greater simplicity--very attractive.  Large and imposingly visible from the quay at San Marco,  San Giorgio Maggiore is very well-known, but we found it all too imposing and formal.

Prior to all this, we spent over two wonderful hours at the Accademia museum. It's undergoing partial renovation, and some visitors had reported bad experiences, but we had no problems at all. The art still on display was perhaps even  more uniformly high quality than normal.  There is also a marvelous exhibition of  three major triptychs by  Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516) which had been exhaustively restored in connection with the 500th anniversary of his death last year (the link is to the same show at the Doge's Palace earlier this year); they are apparently the only works by Bosch in Italy. 

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.