San Nicolò dei Mendicoli (Saint Nicholas of the Beggars)
Campo San Nicolò, Dorsoduro
Venice, September 2013
“Other churches in town may be grander and glitzier, but San Nicolò dei Mendicoli earns a special spot in local hearts for being the most essentially Venetian. From the outside, this low, spare brick Veneto-Gothic church dedicated to serving the poor hasn’t changed much since the 12th century, when its cloisters functioned as a women’s shelter and its portico sheltered mendicoli (beggars). The tiny, picturesque campo out front is a Venice in miniature, surrounded on three sides by canals and bearing a pylon bearing the winged lion of St Mark, one of the few in Venice to have escaped target practice by Napoleon’s troops.” (Chiesa di San Nicolò dei Mendicoli, Lonely Planet)
This church was restored during the Seventies and a location in Nicolas Roeg's thriller film "Don't Look Now" (1973). In this church the architect (played by Donald Sutherland) has his near accident at the scaffolding.
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