DISCOVER VENICE

The church of St Job in Venice is located in the Sestriere (district) of Cannaregio and overlooks the homonymous campo (square), on the left bank of the Cannaregio Canal at the Ponte dei Tre Archi.

In 1378 a hospice with a small oratory dedicated to San Giobbe or Saint Job attached was begun on this site by Giovanni Contarini, on the land he owned near his house. It was completed by his daughter Lucia, with the help of the Minor Observant Friars, who built the first hospital dedicated to St. Job that later became the current church.

The oratory was replaced by the present church by Bernardino of Siena, with the financial backing of doge Cristoforo Moro in gratitude for Bernardino's prophesy that Moro would become doge; Cristoforo donated 10,000 ducats to the building works in 1471, three months before his death, and was buried in the church.

The work began in 1450 and the church was consecrated in 1493.

Antonio Gambello and Lorenzo di Gian Francesco were the architects of this magnificent structure. The bell tower was completed in 1464, with the elegant Istrian stone mullioned windows and Gothic structure.

Even the great sculptor Pietro Lombardo took part in the work, carving and embellishing the interior of the entrance portal, full of Christian allegory depicting the apotheosis of the Franciscan spirit.

On the arch there are three statues of three saints of the Franciscan spirit: St. Bernardino from Siena, Saint Louis from Toulouse, and St. Anthony from Padua.

Inside the church with a single nave you can notice an asymmetry: the left wall is full of chapels while the right side is linear with four altars. This is because the right side of the church rested on the existing monastery.

It contains the tomb of René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, French ambassador to the Republic of Venice, by the French sculptors Claude Perreau and Thomas Blanchet. Its altarpieces house works by Vivarini, Pietro Lombardo, Luca Della Robbia, Basaiti and Bordone, as well as Girolamo Savoldo's Il Presepio (1540). The church also formerly held Giovanni Bellini's San Giobbe Altarpiece and Vittore Carpaccio's The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple: these works are now in the Accademia Gallery in Venice.

Three are the Venetian nobles buried in this church. On either side of the chancel the patrician Francesco Marin, 1502, and on the right Pietro Cornero, 1586. At the foot of the altar dedicated to St. Bernardine of Siena, there is the tomb of Cardinal Marco Antonio da Mula, 1570, by Alessandro Vittoria. In front of the altar, the patrician Domenico Moro, buried in the Franciscan habit and barefoot (1471)

The presbytery is preceded by a triumphal arch, surrounded by statues of the Archangel Gabriel and the Annunciation. It has a perfectly square shape and to the side four columns are visible.

The church was closed for many years, and then re-open as a subsidiary of St. Jeremiah and in 1952 as a parish church. The monastery was demolished in 1812.