Cannaregio

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http:// www.heygo.com 16th March Cannaregio

Starting from the mysterious church of illuminati we will move further north and discover the house of Tintoretto, learn the legend of the four moors and that of the statue of Mary of the Orchard and cross a bridge that's unique in a town that has almost four hundred bridges.



The Cannaregio canal is one of the most important waterways in Venice. It connects the Grand Canal with the north-western area of the Cannaregio district, between the foundations of San Giobbe and the foundations of Sacca San Girolamo.



We started our tour outside a church with a strange history.

Venice, an ever magic and mysterious city, was already in the 18th century the centre of an influential Freemasonry fraternity, whose members also included the famous adventurer Giacomo Casanova.

Here, the Freemasonry fraternity was so powerful and rich that they had a church built following the Freemasonry doctrines – the church of Saint Mary Magdalene.

The ‘Freemasonry' church was designed as a perfectly round building with a neo classic style and a symbol of the Freemasonry etched on the architrave of the main door – an eye inscribed within a circle and a pyramid with the writing ‘SAPIENTIA EDIFICAVIT SIBI DOMUM', a reference to the cult of the divine knowledge, which is at the base of the Freemason ideologies.

The church has been closed for over 100 years.



Sior Rioba, a gent in an outsized turban, has been hanging out at the corner of Campo dei Mori since the Middle Ages. The square's name is a misnomer, as Rioba and his three buddies are believed to represent the Greek Mastelli family, 12th-century merchants from Morea. The Mastelli brothers became notorious for their eager participation in Doge Dandolo’s sacking of Constantinople and, according to legend, Mary Magdalene herself turned them into stone.



The Church of the Madonna dell'Orto is certainly one of the most important monuments of the Cannaregio district. The sanctuary was built around 1350.

The singular name of the church derives from an anecdote of the time: the Venetian sculptor Giovanni De Santi was commissioned with a statue of the Madonna by the parish priest of Santa Maria Formosa, who however rejected the work; then the artist temporarily placed the statue in his garden, where the sculpture began to emit strange glow especially at night: the news spread and the garden became a pilgrimage destination for the citizens.



Bridges were built without railings till the 18th century. The only bridge left in Venice is the one our guide walked over today “ponte del chiodo”.



It was good to see another part of Venice.

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