Venice — Frari Church

To help us along the way, I've invited a good friend and virtual travel buddy. Welcome, Lisa. Hi, Rick. Lisa will give us helpful directions and sightseeing tips throughout the tour.

And my first tip is to be sure you get our tour updates. Just press the icon at the lower right of your device. You'll find any updates and helpful instructions unique to this tour. Things like closures, opening hours, and reservation requirements.

There's also tips on how to use this audio tour and even the full printed script. Yes, so pause for just a moment right now to review our updates and special tips. It's okay. We'll wait. And then... Let the tour begin! The tour begins.

Let's go. Let's go. The Frari is made of light and flexible brick. The white limestone foundation, you can see, insulates the building from the wet soil.

Enter the church, buy your tickets, and spill out into the nave, or long central hall of the church. Before we approach the main altar, stroll around the nave and just take it all in, while Rick introduces the place. ¶¶ The nave.

The church hierarchy in Rome felt distant and corrupt, and there was a hunger for religious teaching that connected with everyday people. While some of these movements were dubbed heretical, the Franciscans eventually earned the church's blessing. The humanistic spirit of Francis warms both the church and the art that decorates it. Francis loved all of creation, nature, as well as man, and this later inspired Renaissance painters to capture the beauty of the church.

Francis loved the beauty of the physical world and human emotions, showing worshipers the glory of God in human terms. Nowhere is this more clear than in the painting over the main altar. As worshipers enter the church and look down the long nave, the site that greets them, framed by the arch of the choir entrance, is Titian's altarpiece. Approach the altar, passing through the choir, the wooden area in the center of the nave.

Structures like this allowed friars to hold smaller, more intimate services. Notice the organs on either side. And check out the fine-carved wooden inlay above the choir chairs, showing the Renaissance enthusiasm for Florentine-style 3D. Surviving choirs such as this are rare.

In response to Luther's challenge, counter-Reformation churches discarded the idea of choirs and altar screens in order to get priests closer to their flocks. Turn your attention to the large, colorful painting behind the main altar. Titian's Assumption. Framed by an arch. Titian's Assumption of Mary, 1518.

He starts with a circle, Mary's bubble, then overlaps that with a triangle. Draw a line from the apostle reaching up to Mary's face and down the other side. All this is arranged on three horizontal levels, God in heaven, man on earth, Mary in between. Together, these elements draw our eyes from the swirl of arms and legs to the painting's focus, the radiant face of a triumphant Mary, assumed body and soul, into heaven.

At first, the Franciscans were unsure about Titian's creation. They thought this teenage Mary aroused, well, excitement rather than spirituality. Only after the Holy Roman Emperor offered to buy the altar if they refused did the Franciscans agree to pay Titian. The official name of the Frari Church is Santa Maria Gloriosa di Ferrari, dedicated to the glorious Saint Mary.

Titian's altarpiece captures the Madonna in all her youthful glory. As you look around, you'll see that the church is littered with chapels and tombs made possible by the generous financial support of rich people who donated to the Franciscans for the good of their souls. As an added perk, they often got a tomb-topping statue of themselves as well. In the same apse as Titian's Assumption are marble tombs lining the walls. The tomb on the right wall is of Doge Foscari. The Tomb of Doge Foscari

Continue walking to the right of the altar. At the far end of the right, go through the door into the sacristy. You'll come face-to-face with an elaborate reliquary altar worth a quick look. Opposite that, near the entrance door, is a clock, intricately carved from a single piece of wood.

Now, approach the far end of the room where you'll find the gold-framed altarpiece by Bellini. The Pesaro family, who funded much of the frari's construction and decoration, built this delightful chapel, dominated, by Bellini's masterpiece. Giovanni Bellini's

Oh, yeah, thanks. Renaissance humanism demanded Madonnas and saints that were accessible and human. Bellini delivered in a physical setting so beautiful that it creates its own mood of serene holiness. The scene is lit from the left, but no one casts a harsh shadow.

Mary and the babe are wrapped in a glowing aura of reflected light from the golden dome. The beauty is in the details, from the writing in the dome to the red brocade backdrop to the swirls in the marble steps to the angels' dimpled legs. Bellini combined the meditative poses of the Venetian Byzantine tradition with Renaissance innovations. He pioneered painting in oil, using pigments dissolved in vegetable oil rather than medieval tempera or egg-yolk-based paint.

This let him paint subtler shades of colors made with successive layers of paint. And because darker colors aren't so muddy when painted in oil, they pop, effectively giving the artist a broader palette. Bellini virtually invented the formula for Venetian Renaissance altarpieces. This type is called a sacred condition.

It's a conversation where Mary is placed together with saints from different historical eras in a mythical dialogue. As we've seen, Bellini's iconic formula would later be broken by his brash and precocious pupil, Titian. Now, head for the room adjoining the sacristy and find a painting in the shape of a pointed Gothic arch. If Titian broke Bellini's mold, Bellini broke the mold of altarpieces he'd inherited from earlier Venetians. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶

Elizabeth, on the right, bend at the waist and gesture as naturally as 14th-century icons can. With these simple movements, Veneziano gets these uptight icons to lighten up, hinting at the naturalism of the Renaissance. Veneziano was inspired by Byzantine artists who came to Venice in search of more freedom of expression. They had chafed under strict societies, both Byzantine and, in some locales, Islamic, that frowned on painting figurative images.

In Venice, these expats found an eager community of rich patrons who indulged their love of deeper color, movement, luxury, and emotion. Return to the nave and head toward the far end, that is, far from the altar. As you walk down the nave, you'll see that the nave is like in so many European churches. It's lined with tombs and small altars.

Wealthy parishioners wanted a burial spot for their families and a small altar for their descendants to say prayers. They hired famous artists to decorate the chapels and tombs with statues and altar pieces. By donating money to the Franciscans, they were investing in salvation insurance, paying monks to say prayers for their mortal souls. One of the Frari Church's most distinguished parishioners was the painter Titian, whose tomb is in the nave.

As you reach the end of the nave, turn around and face the main altar. The tomb of Titian is in the second bay on your right. That's right as you face the altar. A winged lion stands on top, and on the base, two angels hold a wreath with Titian's name spelled out in Latin, Titiano Ferdinandus. The Tomb of Titian

He was cultured and witty, a fine musician, and a shrewd businessman, an all-around Renaissance kind of guy. Titian resisted the temptation of big money that drew so many of his contemporary Venetian artists to Rome. Instead, he always returned to his beloved Venice and his favorite place of worship, the Ferrari church. In his old age, Titian made arrangements to be buried in the Ferrari.

To decorate his tomb, he began painting a dark, tragic masterpiece called the Pietà. You can see a relief of it in the upper left. Nearing 90, Titian labored to finish his Pietà as the 1576 plague enveloped Venice. One in four people died, including Titian's son.

Heartbroken, Titian died soon afterward of natural causes. He was buried here at his request in a humble spot, but his unfinished Pietà ended up in the Accademia Museum. Three centuries later, in the year, let's see, M-D-C-C-C-L-I-I, I think that's 1852, this big monument was erected to remember and honor Venice's greatest painter. Venice's greatest sculptor is honored on the opposite side of the nave in a pyramid-shaped monument. The Canova Monument.

Follow me here. Canova designed this pyramid-shaped tomb not for his own use, but as the tomb of an artist he greatly admired, Titian. But the Ferrari Church used another design for Titian's tomb, so Canova used the pyramid design for an Austrian princess in Vienna. After his death, Canova's pupils reused the design here to honor their ancestors.

In fact, Canova isn't buried here. Instead, his body lies in southern Italy. But inside the tomb's open door, you can barely make out an urn which contains Canova's heart. Those Europeans and their body parts.

I tell ya. Our final stop is a little further up the nave. Start walking. I left my heart And on the left wall Inside the Ferrari Please.

On the left wall is a big, gaudy tomb with black and white slaves. Past that is our final stop, a small altar with a painted altarpiece. Titian's Madonna of Capesaro

Mary sits not on a throne, but on a pedestal. Baby Jesus is restless. The precious keys of St. Peter seem to dangle unnoticed.

These things upset traditional Renaissance notions, but they turn a group of figures into a true and believable scene. St. Peter sits in the center in blue and gold with a book. He looks down at the head of the noble Pesaro family, who kneels to thank the Virgin for his recent naval victory over the Turks.

A flag-carrying lieutenant drags in a turban to captive. Meanwhile, St. Francis talks to baby Jesus while gesturing down to more members of the Pesaro family. At the lower right, the little guy looking out at us is the Pesaro descendant who administered the trust fund to keep prayers coming for his dead uncle.

Titian combines opposites, a soft-focus Madonna with photorealistic portraits, chubby-winged angels with a Muslim prisoner, and a Christian cross with a belt. It's a battle flag. In keeping with the spirit of St. Francis' humanism, Titian lets mere mortals mingle with saints, and we're right there with him.

We hope you enjoyed your walk through the Ferrari Church. Before you leave the neighborhood, consider a visit to the nearby Scuola San Rocco with masterpieces by Tintoretto. If you're up for more sightseeing, we have audio tours covering St. Mark's Square, the Basilica, and the Grand Canal.

Remember, this tour was excerpted from the Rick Steves Venice Guidebook, co-authored with Gene Openshaw. For more details on eating, sleeping, and sightseeing in Venice and the environs, refer to this year's edition of that guidebook. For more free audio tours and podcasts, and for information about our TV shows, bus tours, and travel gear, visit our website at ricksteves.com. Thanks to Gene Openshaw, the co-author of this tour.

This tour was produced by Cedar House Audio Productions. Gracias. Arrivederci. And buon viaggio.