Le Zitelle (officially Santa Maria della Presentazione) is a church in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is part of a former complex which gave shelter to young maidens ("zitelle" in Italian) who had no dowry, and is in the easternmost part of the

Giudecca Giudecca (; vec, Zueca) is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, in northern Italy. It is part of the '' sestiere'' of Dorsoduro and is a locality of the ''comune'' of Venice. Geography Giudecca lies immediately south of the central islands of Ve ...

island. Generally attributed to

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of ...

, the original design dates to 1579–80 and the construction to 1586. Its housing edifice surrounds the church in a horseshoe shape, with a court behind the apse. The façade has two orders, surmounted by a tympanum and flanked by two small bell towers. The church has a large dome with a roof lantern. The interior is on the central plan. It houses works by Aliense,

Leandro Bassano Leandro Bassano (10 June 1557 – 15 April 1622), also called Leandro dal Ponte, was an Italian artist from Bassano del Grappa who was awarded a knighthood by the Doge of Venice. He was the younger brother of artist Francesco Bassano the Younge ...

and

Palma il Giovane Iacopo Negretti (1548/50 – 14 October 1628), best known as Jacopo or Giacomo Palma il Giovane or simply Palma Giovane ("Young Palma"), was an Italian painter from Venice and a notable exponent of the Venetian school. After Tintoretto's death ...

. The attribution to Andrea Palladio is not without controversy. Th
Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio
points to a lack of contemporary documents and drawings confirming Palladio's involvement with the project and the fact that construction only started in 1581, one year after Palladio's death. They consider:

... a project by Palladio both possible and datable to the mid-1570s, but neither the façade nor the interior of the church display characteristics which are unequivocally related to Palladio’s language, unless in an extremely clumsy and unfaithful version.CISA A.Palladio website
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The church is now only open on Sundays, and the Bauer Hotel has acquired the former convent and converted it into a 50-room luxury hotel – The Palladio.

Notes

Roman Catholic churches completed in 1586 16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Roman Catholic churches in Venice Andrea Palladio church buildings Dorsoduro Renaissance architecture in Venice {{Italy-RC-church-stub