01 Painting of the Canals of Venice, with foot notes. #60

Master of the Langmatt Foundation Views, possibly Apollonio Domenichini (1715–1770)

Venice, view of the Fondamenta Nuove from the island of San Michele with the Ospedale and the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti as well as the Canale Fondamento Nuovo and the Ponte dei Mendicanti, c. 1770

 The church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti

Detail

San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti is an ancient church in the sestiere of Castello, Venice, with a facade facing a Rio of the same name. It now serves as the chapel of the Civic Hospital of Venice.

By 1224, a hospital for lepers, dedicated to St Lazarus patron saint of those afflicted with the disease, was found adjacent to the church of San Trovaso in the sestiere of Dorsoduro. In 1262, a Leper Colony was quarantined to an island in the Lagoon, then called Isola di San Lazzaro.

In 1500, funds left over after the construction of the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, were allocated to build an adjacent leper Hospital of San Lazaro. It was one of the four main hospitals (Ospedali Maggiori) in Venice. The term Mendicanti could be derived from two sources: first in 1601, the Mendicant Friars commissioned the building of this churchi. Second, the hospital appears to have served as a shelter for beggars (mendicanti), as well as lepers.

The father of Antonio Vivaldi taught violin at the music school here from 1689 to 1693. Like the Ospedale della Pietà, it took in abandoned girls who studied music and were trained to sing and play. The church still has a metal grille behind which the orphan girls (figlie del coro in Italian) sang.

For this church, the composer Simon Mayr wrote the oratorio Sisara (based on story of Sisera). More on San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti

Apollonio Domenichini, alternatively referred to as the Maestro della Fondazione Langmatt, or Menichini or il Menichino (Venice, 1715 - c.1770) was an Italian painter of vedute, active in Venice, Italy, between 1740 and 1770.

He was a pupil of Luca Carlevarijs and Johan Richter. He is best known for his pictorial representations of views of Venice and its surroundings. His name is recorded in the records of the fraglia or guild of Venetian painters in 1757, and it often appears as the painter of many works sent by the art dealer Giovanni Maria Sasso to the English minister John Strange in the second half of the eighteenth century. His name was proposed as the "master of the Langmatt Foundation" name from the series of thirteen vedute owned by the Langmatt Foundation in Baden near Zurich. More on Apollonio Domenichini

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, and The Canals of Venice

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