Santa Maria Derelitti: Façade

Giuseppe Sardi was commissioned in 1664 by the merchant Bartolomeo Cargnoni to rebuild the church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti, also known as the Ospedaletto. The church was completed by Baldassare Longhena; the fa�ade was designed by Longhena and its sculpture carved by Josse De Corte.

The ponderous, dark, and monstrous fa�ade is indecipherable in its appearance of grotesque deformity and distorted games, tightly closed in, yet evading the observer, as obsessive as a nightmare. The derision of the monstrous masks on the dadoes of the pilasters of the first order, the absurd strength of the four gigantic telamons, the ironically exaggerated cornices, the invisible cartouche on the attic, and the four poised statues are more hinted at than truly seen.

The Ospedaletto is one of Longhena’s last works. In contrast to the clarity and total legibility of the earlier Santa Maria della Salute, we have here an impossibility of seeing, an absence of perspective. Instead of the three-dimensional construction of an architectonic machine we have its counterpoint, the senseless overhanging of an illogical marble scene.