ARCHITECTURE IN VENICE From the Renaissance to Carlo Scarpa

6 days | £2995 per person with flights | 10 - 15 September 2025

From the Renaissance to Carlo Scarpa

From its origins the architecture of Venice has always had a highly distinctive character. It is not just that the builders of the city had to adapt their constructions to a unique environment, taking into account the different consistency of their foundations and the need for all important buildings to face the water or even to rise directly from it; there is also the fact that this very environment inspired a different aesthetic sensibility, privileging lightness and pictorial delicacy over solidity and sturdiness. This explains the almost lace-like beauty of the Doge’s Palace, when compared with the robustness of equivalent buildings elsewhere in Italy. These qualities were not confined to the Byzantine and Gothic churches and palaces, which are such a distinctive feature of the city; when Venice adopted the ideals that inspired the Tuscan Renaissance, her architects (even when Florentine of birth, like Sansovino) adapted the classical forms to the particular requirements of the Venetian environment – and Venetian tastes.

Our tour will take in 15^th- and 16^th-century masterpieces, like the church of the Miracoli, San Giovanni Crisostomo, San Zaccaria, and the Scuola di San Marco, where Codussi and the Lombardo family used marble with the delicacy and skill of great sculptors. We will examine the great works of Palladio; his classical buildings were to inspire later generations of British and American architects, but his greatest creations are in Venice, where he made the most of the extraordinary lagoon setting. Venice’s finest Baroque buildings, like the church of the Salute, Santa Maria del Giglio and San Moisè, for all their elaborate marblework, still share those Venetian qualities of exuberant buoyancy. The tour will also include the recreated 19^th-century opera house, La Fenice, and the intriguing buildings of Venice’s 20^th-century architectural genius, Carlo Scarpa. Even if you already know Venice, this tour will reveal new and splendid aspects of the city’s singular beauty.



Day to day Itinerary

Day 1

Flight from London to Venice. Transfer by water-taxi from the airport to our hotel in the heart of Venice. After settling in, we will set out on a short orientation-walk around the hotel and St Mark’s square before a group meal.



Day 2

We will start our journey through the history of Venice’s architecture from its origins to the 15^th century. Our morning visits will include the Corte del Milion and the byzantine-style buildings known today as the house of Marco Polo. We then walk on to the Rialto district to visit the charming San Giovanni Crisostomo, a Greek-cross church designed in 1480s by the architect Mauro Codussi in the new Renaissance style. After lunch we continue to visit the precious marble church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, built in the 1480s to house a miraculous image of the Virgin, and the façade of the Scuola di San Marco, a masterpiece of Venetian Renaissance art by Pietro Lombardo and Codussi.



Day 3

In the morning we will explore the district of San Marco starting with the Piazza and focusing on the Torre dell’Orologio, the Procuratorie Nuove, the Loggetta and the Marciana Library by Jacopo Sansovino. A short walk will take us to the Church of San Zaccaria by Codussi, one of the earliest architects of the Serenissima in the new Renaissance style. After lunch we continue to Palazzo Grimani, one of the jewels of Renaissance Venetian architecture. A short walk within the district of Castello will lead us to admire the entrance arch of the Arsenale, the very first public monument in Renaissance style in Venice, which became a manifesto of the architecture and a status symbol of the Serenissima. Return to the hotel for some free time before regrouping for an exclusive private evening visit to the Basilica di San Marco.



Day 4

The Counter-Reformation found its perfect expression in Venice in the monumental and serene ecclesiastical architecture of Andrea Palladio: at San Giorgio Maggiore and at the Redentore, Palladio provided harmoniously designed churches catering for the requirements of the Catholic Church in the wake of the Council of Trent. In the former Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, enjoy a private visit to admire the cloisters designed by Palladio and the double staircase by Longhena. In the afternoon, our journey continues through the Baroque period of Venice’s architecture with visits to the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the masterpiece of Baldassare Longhena. A short boat trip across the Grand Canal will take us to Santa Maria del Giglio, with its extraordinary Baroque façade glorifying the patrician Venetian Barbaro family. On our way back to the hotel we will walk past San Moisè with its elaborate and controversial Baroque façade.



Day 5

Our morning visits through Venice’s 18^th century architecture will take us by Giannantonio Selva’s Teatro della Fenice, one of the Serenissima’s last public building projects, originally constructed in 1792, and twice destroyed by fire, most recently in 1996. Only the original façade survived, and the opera house was rebuilt and opened once again to the public in 2004. In the afternoon, at the Museum Querini Stampalia we will visit the garden and the ground-floor Portego, designed by Carlo Scarpa, the famous Venetian architect of the mid-20^th Century. We then continue to the Negozio Olivetti in St Mark’s Square, another of Carlo Scarpa’s creations.



Duodo Palace Hotel

The Duodo Palace is a refined hotel in the heart of the historical centre of Venice. The hotel has its own ‘water door’ for easy access to and from the airport and for visiting the sights of this vibrant city.  The rooms preserve the charm of this noble building, decorated in classic Venetia style, but providing all modern comforts.

With Flights: £2995

Join Direct: £2845

Single Supp: £395

Deposit: £450

Departure Dates:

10 - 15 September 2025

Duration:

5 nights / 6 days

Your Holiday Includes:

• Scheduled return flights from London to Venice
• Five nights' bed and breakfast at the Duodo Palace Hotel
• Transfers and excursions  (as appropriate) by water-taxi and private coach
• Two evening meals and two lunches
• Guided visits to sites listed in the programme.
• Services of the tour lecturer and tour manager. 
• Detailed programme and study notes.
• All entrance fees, taxes, and gratuities for coach drivers and serving staff
  

Tour Lecturers

Dr Marie-Louise Lillywhite

Marie-Louise Lillywhite is a research associate at Keble College and a member of the History Faculty at Oxford University. She is a specialist in Northern Italian Renaissance Art and lived for many years in Venice, where she taught at the University of Warwick. Marie-Louise has published on topics that include aspects of confraternal artistic patronage in early-modern Italy; seventeenth-century drawings of women and children; the limits of artistic liberty in post-Tridentine Venice; and twentieth-century garden design in Sri Lanka. She is currently putting the finishing touches to a book called 'Reforming Art in Renaissance Venice', to be published by Cambridge University Press next year. This explores how artists articulated belief in the decades following the Reformations, at a time when the significance and power of the sacred image was highly contested by both Protestants and Catholics.



Travel Information

The price does not include extras at the hotels or travel insurance.



Please note that Art Pursuits use hotels of character featuring a variety of rooms & styles.

Stamina

Please note that some of our tours can involve a fair amount of walking, sometimes across uneven ground. Please contact us if you would like more information.