La Maddalena, Venice
Encyclopedia
The church of the Maddalena (Italian: Santa Maria Maddalena in Cannaregio, usually referred to simply as La Maddalena) is a church in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, in the sestiere
Sestiere
A sestiere is a subdivision of certain Italian towns and cities. The word is from sesto, or sixth; and is thus used only for towns divided into six districts. The best-known example are the sestieri of Venice, but Ascoli Piceno, Genoa, Milan and Rapallo, for example, were also divided into sestieri...

of Cannaregio
Cannaregio
Cannaregio is the northernmost of the six historic sestieri of Venice. It is the second largest sestiere by land area and the largest by population, with 13,169 people as of 2007....

.

A religious edifice is known in the site as early as 1222, owned by the Balbo patrician family. When, in the mid-14th century, the Venetian Senate established a public holiday for Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...

's feast, it was decided to enlarge the church, including a watchtower which was turned into a bell tower.

The church was restored in the early 18th century, but in 1780 it was entirely rebuilt under design by Tommaso Temanza, with a circular plan inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The bell tower was demolished in 1888. The most notable feature is the portal, with masonic symbols over the door (probably connected to the Balbo's membership in the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

). The interior has hexagonal plan with four side chapels and a presbytery.

Outside the apse is a 15th century basrelief of the Madonna with Child.
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