Santi Biagio e Cataldo or San Biagio e Cataldo was a church on the western corner of the

Giudecca Giudecca (; ) 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 Venice, from wh ...

island in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, Italy. It was dedicated to

saint Blaise Blaise of Sebaste (, ''Hágios Blásios''; martyred 316 AD) was a physician and bishop of Sivas, Sebastea in historical Lesser Armenia (modern Sivas, Turkey) who is venerated as a Christian saint and martyr. He is counted as one of the Fourteen ...

and saint Catald.

History

The original building dates back to the end of the 10th century and was consecrated in 1188. In 1222 a monastery was built adjoining it. The church has been restored twice. The first time was a radical restructuring in 1593 by

Michele Sanmicheli Michele Sanmicheli, sometimes also transcribed as Sammicheli, Sanmichele or Sammichele (Verona, 1484There is no certainty about the date of his birth. Vasari reports 1484, while architectural historian Giulio Sancassani, through a study of his fat ...

, demolished the roof of the choir and sending its columns to the nearby church of Sant'Eufemia.

Merian Merian may refer to People with the surname * Merian family, Swiss patrician family from Basel * Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593–1650), Swiss-German engraver and publisher * Matthäus Merian the Younger (1621–1687), Swiss painter * Maria Siby ...

's plan of 1635 probably shows the original church prior to that restoration, on a Romanesque three-nave

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

plan with a frontage directly onto the lagoon and a Romanesque belltower with a pyramidal spire. A second restoration early in the 18th century by Domenico Rossi and

Giorgio Massari Giorgio Massari (13 October 1687 – 20 December 1766) was an Italian late-Baroque architect from Venice. He designed the Villa Lattes near Treviso in 1715, the church of Santo Spritito in Udine, the church of Santa Maria della Pace, Brescia, Sa ...

concentrated on the interior, altars and paintings. Johan Richter's view of the church of 1725 shows it still as a three nave basilica church, with a covered portico along one side - it shows the church from the lagoon and thus gives no evidence for the façade on the landward side. The square belltower with a polygonal spire above the belfry is shown further back than it is in the de Barbari plan, after Sanmicheli's radical restructuring. The church and its monastery remained active until 1810, when it was suppressed by Napoleonic decree. It was bought by a private owner and initially converted into a hospital complex before being demolished in the second half of the 19th century to make way for the Molino Stucky industrial complex.

Bibliography

* {{Coord, 45.4279, N, 12.3194, E, source:wikidata, display=title Biaggio Biaggio Buildings and structures demolished in the 19th century