Le Zitelle

---

Le Zitelle (Santa Maria della Presentazione) by Andrea Palladio, 1581
Fondamenta Zitelle, Giudecca
Venice, September 2013

“The church forms part of an ecclesiastical complex created by the Jesuit Benedetto Palmi in order to assist poor girls and although the building site on the Giudecca was acquired in 1561, works on the church began after Palladio’s death. The first stone was laid in 1581 and the church consecrated in 1588. However, huge purchases of building materials are documented already in 1575-1576, perhaps intended precisely for the church. On this basis, recent hypotheses consider a project by Palladio both possible and datable to the mid-1570s, but neither the façade nor the interior of the church display characteristics which are unequivocally related to Palladio’s language, unless in an extremely clumsy and unfaithful version.” (The Zitelle, Palladio and the Veneto)