San Samuele 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...

, northern 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...

. It is located in the eponymous campo near Palazzo Grassi

Palazzo Grassi

Palazzo Grassi is an edifice in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice, northern Italy...

 and Palazzo Malipiero

Palazzo Malipiero

Palazzo Malipiero is a palace in Venice, Italy. It is located on the Grand Canal in the central San Samuele square.It stands just across from Palazzo Grassi Exhibition Center.It is situated at the crossroads of the city's cultural and artistic areas...

. It is entitled to the Biblical Samuel

Samuel

Samuel is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the Qur'an....

, because in the interior are housed relics traditionally attributed to him.

The church was built around 1000 by the families Boldù and Soranzo. In the early 12th centuries it was destroyed by two fires and then reconstructed. In 1685 it was again almost entirely rebuilt. The portico on the façade, now closed, is surmounted by a loggia

Loggia

Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...

 added in 1952.

The interior, over the high altar, houses a 14th century crucifix attributed to Paolo Veneziano

Paolo Veneziano

Paolo Veneziano, also Veneziano Paolo or Paolo da Venezia was a medieval painter from Venice. He has been called "the most important Venetian painter of the 14thcentury"....

.

San Samuele bears the distinction of being one of only a handful of Venetian churches dedicated to an Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

 rather than a Roman Catholic saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

. It is also unique in that its late-Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 apse

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

 has remained intact despite the restructuring of its nave

Nave

In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

 and façade in 1685. The walls and vaults of this apse have been restored starting in 1999, and are one of the few surviving fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

 cycles of the early Venetian Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. The cycle depicts eight Sibyl

Sibyl

The word Sibyl comes from the Greek word σίβυλλα sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally— at Delphi and...

s, Greek and Roman female seers who were believed to have predicted events in the life of Christ such as the Annunciation

Annunciation

The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

, the Crucifixion

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

 and the Resurrection

Resurrection

Resurrection refers to the literal coming back to life of the biologically dead. It is used both with respect to particular individuals or the belief in a General Resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The General Resurrection is featured prominently in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim...

. The ceiling's quadripartite vault features Saints Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

, Augustine

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

, Ambrose

Ambrose

Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...

 and Gregory

Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...

, the four fathers of the Western church, set in roundels and surrounded by inscriptions, decorative foliage, and putti bearing the instruments of the Passion. Above the high altar, the frescoes occupying the spaces between the ribs of the cupola feature Christ and the four Evangelists Matthew

Matthew the Evangelist

Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...

, Mark

Mark the Evangelist

Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

, Luke

Luke the Evangelist

Luke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles...

 and John

John the Evangelist

Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...

. The cycle has traditionally been attributed to the Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

n or Bolognese

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

school.