Madonna dell'Orto

The most beautiful Gothic church in Venice, the Madonna dell’Orto was built by Fra Tiberio of Parma in the mid-14th century and originally dedicated to the giant saint Christopher, the patron of the boatmen who used to sail from here to the north lagoon.

Before long, though, Christopher was upstaged by the miracles performed by an equally large and rather ungainly statue of the Madonna by Giovanni de’ Santi in a nearby vegetable garden (orto). Eventually the Madonna came out from the cabbages for a place inside the church, which was altered in the early 1400s and rededicated.

A 15th-century Istrian stone statue of St Christopher Carrying Baby Jesus, by Tuscan sculptor Nicolò di Giovanni, still holds pride of place over the doorway (a late work of Bartolomeo Bon); he keeps company with two rows of Apostles (by the Dalle Masegne brothers) in niches along the cornice. The distinctive onion dome on the campanile was added in the Renaissance.