You will meet your professionally-trained guide in St Marks Square, and begin a pleasant walk to Scuola di San Rocco. The "School of San Rocco" was founded in the late fifteenth century. It is perhaps the best preserved of the six Scuole Grandi (Major Guilds) which for many centuries formed the network of brotherhoods of religious nature. These were set up to help the poor and sick, or to protect the interests of individual professions, or to help the weak and needy members of non-Venetian communities living in the city. The Scuola Grande di San Rocco was very popular because its patron saint was renowned for offering protection from plague, which was spreading across Europe at that time. The grandiose building was started in 1517 and the finishing touches were not applied until 1560. Four years later Jacopo Tintoretto, one of the last great painters of the Venetian Renaissance began his pictorial decorations of the rooms. This work, which took him 24 years, constitutes one of the most fascinating pictorial undertakings ever known.
From the scuole, a short walk beings you to the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, (often shortened to just "Frari",) One of the greatest churches in the city, it has the status of a minor basilica and is dedicated to the Assumption. Built in the Italian Gothic style, the church has a plain exterior. The interior contains the only rood screen still in place in Venice. The interior also holds many great works of art by painters, as well as sculptors, of the Italian Renaissance, including Bellini, the Vivarinis, Campagna and Donatello. But it is the painter Titian who takes center stage, literally, with his "Assumption of the Virgin" which is the largest altarpiece in the city. This extraordinary piece of colorism, executed on a grand scale rarely before seen in Italy, created a sensation.
You will then walk through narrow Venetian streets called "calli" to reach your last visit, the Ca Rezzonico, a real 18th Century Venetian Palace. It took nearly 100 years to finish and when you visit the palace, you will truly understand life in Venice in the 18th century. This beautiful palace was home to the Rezzonico family and the future Pope Clement XIII. In the 19th century, it became a home and studio to many artists such as John Singer Sargent and Robert Barrett Browning, whose father, poet Robert Browning died there. Ca' Rezzonico is now the home of the Museo del Settecento. Its main floor is packed with period furniture and tapestries in gilded salons. Upper floors contain hundreds of paintings, most from the Venetian schools, with works by Tiepolo, Visconti, Longhi and Giovan Battista Crosato. Among the highlights are the Ballroom's ceiling fresco by Crosato, depicting Apollo traveling between the continents, and the Nuptial Allegory Room with frescoes by Tiepolo. Tiepolo's Allegory of Merit and a collection of Murano Glass are later additions to the museum.
After the visit of Ca Rezzonico Museum, a private motor launch will take you back to either the cruise pier or to St. Mark's Square.
Please note: Your tour departs from the St. Mark's Square area. Transfers to/from St. Mark's Square before and after your tour are not included in the tour price. Guests going to St Mark's after their tour will be responsible for their own transportation back to the ship's pier at their own expense.
Please note: the tour requires approximately 3 hours of walking and involves flights of stairs at two of the visits.
