San Nicolò da Tolentino

The striking Corinthian porch of San Nicolò da Tolentino (or I Tolentini) looms like a Roman ruin over the Fondamenta dei Tolentini. Initially this was an oratory, built in 1528 for the followers of San Gaetano da Thiene (St Cajetan), the Theatines. This order, leaders in the fight against the heresies of Martin Luther, took refuge in Venice after the Sack of Rome.

The Theatines commissioned Vincenzo Scamozzi to build the present church in 1591. The giant porch, funded in the will of Alvise da Mosto, was designed by Andrea Tirali (1716) and inspired by Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta. Under the porch you can see a cannonball embedded in the façade, a souvenir left by the Austrians in the siege of 1849.

Scamozzi's equally Palladian interior is partly disguised by the rococo stuccoes added by a 17th-century pastry chef-cum-artist. The high altar was designed by Scamozzi's pupil Longhena.