Church of Santa Margherita

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Church of Santa Margherita
Via San Francesco
Padua, May 2025

“The church of Santa Margherita is a religious building of medieval origin that overlooks Via San Francesco, in Padua. Dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch, it owes its current architectural form to the interventions of Tommaso Temanza and perhaps Domenico Rossi. Until 1797 it was the ‘Abbadia’ of the Gradenigo family , currently it is an oratory subject to the parish of San Francesco Grande. The church was founded on June 9, 1198, by the monks of the Abbey of San Cipriano in Murano . It was an important religious center for the district, which was known as ‘Santa Margherita’, but with the construction of the church of San Francesco Grande in 1416, it lost importance. The precise characteristics of the original building are unknown. In the 16th century, the assets of the Abbey of San Cipriano passed to the Patriarchate of Venice , but by order of Sixtus V, the sacred building remained with the Gradenigo patricians, who had previously assumed full patronage rights over the church and other assets of the defunct Murano Abbey. The independent church, ‘Abbadia de'Gradenighi’, which a member of the family governed with the title of Abbot, underwent various changes until its complete reconstruction, undertaken by its owners around the 1730s and 1740s. According to Rossetti (1780), the work was entrusted to a certain Domenico Rizzi, perhaps the same Domenico Rossi towards whom the critic Giulio Bresciani Alvarez was leaning. The façade was erected to a design by Tommaso Temanza in 1748. The first work of the Venetian architect, it provoked heavy criticism so much so that it risked demolition. It was saved thanks to the intervention of Giovanni Poleni, Temanza's mentor.” (Chiesa di Santa Margherita, Wikipedia)