San Simeone Piccolo

San Simeone Piccolo (also called San Simeone e Giuda) is a church in the sestiere of Santa Croce in Venice, northern Italy. From across the Grand Canal it faces the railroad terminal serving as entrypoint for most visitors to the city.

Built in 1718-38 by Giovanni Antonio Scalfarotto, the church shows the emerging eclecticism of Neoclassical architecture. It accumulates academic architectural quotations, much like the contemporaneous Karlskirche in Vienna. Wittkower, in his monograph,^[1] acknowledges San Simeone is modeled on the Pantheon with a temple-front pronaos, on the other hand, the peaked dome recalls Longhena's more embellished and prominent Santa Maria della Salute church. The centralized circular church design and the metal dome recalls Byzantine models and San Marco, though the numerous centrifugal chapels are characteristic of Post-Tridentine churches.

This was one of the last churches built in Venice, in one of its poorer sestieri.

The pediment of the entrance has a marble relief depicting "The Martyrization of the Saints" by Francesco Penso, known as "il Cabianca". Saint Simon was apparently the martyred cousin of Christ, martyred as a Jew by the Romans.

The mass is celebrated according to the 1962 Roman Missal by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.

References