The Church of St George the Greater is a majestic structure - not only in its design, but also in its position. The church, its monastery, its gardens and just a couple of other secular buildings are the only structures that stand on the tiny island hosting them.
The Island of San Giorgio is said to have been settled during the Roman Empire. After the foundation of Venice it was named Insula Memmia, in honor of the Memmo family who cultivated it. By the 8th century a church dedicated to St George stood on the island. It was called San Giorgio Maggiore, so as to distinguish it from the nearby island-monastery known as San Giorgio in Alga, or St George of the Seaweed. In 982 Doge Tribuno Memmo donated the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore to a Benedictine monk named Giovanni Morosini. Morosini drained the marshes around the church and built a monastery next to it, becoming its first abbot. In 1223 all the buildings on the island were razed to the ground by an earthquake. The church and monastery were immediately rebuilt, but the monks, as well as most of the Venetian citizens, did not find it particularly inspiring. For almost 300 years the church and the cumbersome set of cloisters around it stood attracting more mosquitoes than churchgoers. Finally in 1559 an architect from Vicenza by the name of Andrea Palladio arrived in Venice and proposed to rebuild the monastery. When the monastery was completed, Palladio proposed to erect a new church. His project was approved and in 1566 the first stone was laid in the presence of Pope Pius V. By the time Palladio died only the body of the church had been finished, excluding the apse and the façade. On the sides of the main portal we find statues of St George and St Stephen. The bell tower was erected in conformity with the neoclassical style of the church in the 18th century, replacing an older one that had stood on the site since the 15th century. The bell tower offers a divine view of the terracotta-roofed city with all its domes and belfries.
The interior of the church presents a Latin cross layout with a long nave and bright transepts. The reason the church seems rather bare inside is that the Benedictine monks, unlike most religious orders, did not sell the chapels and altars to wealthy families, who would then decorate them in any manner they wanted. Only a few paintings, albeit very expressive ones, decorate the walls. The chapel on the right of the high altar contains a work by Sebastiano Ricci, the Virgin and Child with Saints. The altarpiece to the left of the sanctuary is by Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, Risen Christ and St Andrew with Vincenzo Morosini and family. In the left transept we find the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints, also by the Tintorettos. The great Tintoretto is also the author of the painting that can be found in the Chapel of the Dead, the Entombment of Christ, as well as the two large paintings gracing the presbytery, the Last Supper and the Fall of Manna. As simple as the interior may seem, when it came to paintings, the monks made sure to acquire the cream of the crop.
The San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery also has a very important history. Throughout its existence it has been considered one of the most prestigious theological and cultural centers in Europe. In the 12th century it hosted the reconciliation between Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who had been at odds over Frederick's incursions into Italy. In the 15th century the monastery welcomed the exiled ruler of Florence, Cosimo de Medici. In the 16th century Paolo Veronese painted the Wedding Feast at Cana for the refectory built by Palladio. Unfortunately, the painting was purloined by Napoleon and today hangs in the Louvre. In the 17th century Baldassarre Longhena built the grand staircase, the new library, the monastery façade, the infirmary and the guesthouse. In 1799, while the French Revolutionary Army was occupying Rome, the Papal conclave moved to the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery to elect Pope Pius 7. They met in the hall in which hangs Vittore Carpaccio's St George Slaying the Dragon. In 1806 the French suppressed the monastery and it became a weapons depot. Under Austrian occupation it was used as a military garrison and after Venice united with Italy in 1866 it slowly drifted into a state of neglect.
In 1951 the monastery was granted to the Cini Foundation, which restored it and has been using it for conferences, cultural events, exhibitions and theatrical presentations in the splendid open-air theater called the Teatro Verde. The foundation had been established by Count Vittorio Cini in memory of his son Giorgio, who died in an airplane accident in 1949. The count himself had been close to death when during World War II the German SS deported him to a concentration camp. It was his son who got him out by paying off the officials. The little harbor facing the bay was built in the second half of the 20th century and offers parking space, if still available, for private yachts and sailboats.
The Island of San Giorgio Maggiore along with the Punta della Dogana and the Doge's Palace form the contours of the St Marks Bay. They are its most representative components. The island can be reached by vaporetto, which departs from the Riva degli Schiavoni.