This is a preview of the content in our Venice Art & Culture app. Get the app to:
  • Read offline
  • Remove ads
  • Access all content
  • Use the in-app Map to find sites, and add custom locations (your hotel...)
  • Build a list of your own favourites
  • Search the contents with full-text search functionality
  • ... and more!
iOS App Store Google Play

San Nicolo dei Mendicoli

The 'Don't Look Now' church

San Nicolo dei Mendicoli

One of Venice’s most ancient churches, San Nicolò ‘of the beggars’ was founded in the 7th century, even before the Venetians staged their theft of Santa Claus’ relics from Myra.

Rebuilt again and again, and restored most recently in 1977 by Venice in Peril, it has a Renaissance porch full of old architectural fragments, a detached Veneto-Byzantine campanile, and a sweet golden honey interior, embellished with wood sculptures, paintings by Alvise del Friso, and on the ceiling, a tondo of St Nicholas in Glory, framed with a perspective border by Francesco Montemezzano. The gilded wooden statue of the saint on the altar is attributed to a follower of Bartolomeo Bon.

Inside the main portal is a detailed model of the church’s appearance centuries ago, apparently made from sheets of styrofoam insulation. In a way this little church, as headquarters of the Nicolotti, was the St Mark’s of the west side of the Grand Canal.

The church, its interior under restoration in 1972 and scaffolding already in place, was the one used in Don't Look Now (1973) as the church that Donald Sutherland's character was restoring. In the film, he nearly suffers a fatal fall—a scene Sutherland played himself, as the insurance wasn't in order for the stuntman.

Practical Info Practical Info icon

Hours Mon-Sat 10am-12noon and 3-5pm; Sun 10am-12noon

Adm Free

+39 041 275 0382

Campo San Nicolò

vaporetto Santa Marta/ San Basilio.

Veneto-Byzantine Art: the ‘Proto-Renaissance’

Churches

Dorsoduro

Film Sets

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Image by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls