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ENTRANCE
Upon entering Santa Maria dei Miracoli, one is immediately dazzled by the shimmering marble revetments, the intricate carving, and the overall preciousness of this small but glorious building. Marble and porphyry facings sheathe the walls of the single-nave church and elaborate, colored marble inlay covers the floors. The eyes of the visitor are drawn toward the raised presbytery where the small miracle-working icon of the Virgin stands, enshrined on the altar.
At the time of the Miracoli's construction, other Venetian churches contained some marble paneling, but no other church in Venice was completely clad in marble from the outset. The coloring of the panels and the relationships of the colors were surely significant to Lombardo; the fact that the contract for the construction specified exactly which marbles were to be used indicates that the procurators shared this concern with the architect.
Documents indicate that the interior marble facings originally reached up to the first cornice. The upper register of the walls was probably decorated with stucco painted to imitate marble. The decorative scheme called for the light-colored panels to be placed into frames created by darker borders. Even though the additional facings on the upper register (which seems to date from the mid-nineteenth century) generally follow the same pattern of framing light-colored panels in darker frames, there is little concordance between the two zones. The panels in the upper half are much larger, their veining differs significantly, and no vertical or horizontal harmony can be established between the two zones. Further, these additions were disastrous from a conservation point of view: they sealed the underlying brick core, locking in moisture. Thus, each time the Miracoli's brick walls were exposed to water (through precipitation or flooding), they had no means of drying out. The conditions resulting from this situation necessitated the now completed restoration, which has returned the Miracoli to its original splendor.
As one enters the church through the main portal, one stands beneath the balcony. This structure was included to accommodate the nuns, who lived a cloistered existence and thus had to remain out of view of the general public. While the nunnery was in operation, the balcony could only be accessed through a "cavalcavia," or a raised footbridge, which connected the nunnery and the church (visible below in a nineteenth-century lithograph by Tosini-Lazzari). A steep wooden ladder was added in the entrance area after the footbridge was removed in the late nineteenth century. The ladder provided interior access to the balcony and is still in use today. The dropped ceiling in the entrance area is a simpler version of the main barrel vault: wooden panels of saints are set within gilded wooden frames. Marble pilasters, beautifully carved with figural and floral patterns, support the balcony.
Image: Tosini-Lazzari, lithograph, Venice, Correr Museum
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