Campo Santa Fosca Site Features

The Sarpi monument

A bronze statue of Paolo Sarpi stands in the campo, close to where he was stabbed in 1607. It was put up in 1892, at a moment when the new Italian state was actively claiming Sarpi as a symbol of resistance to papal authority -- so the monument is as much about the 19th century as about the 17th.

The bridge

The Ponte Santa Fosca beside the square is the actual site of the attack. Sarpi was crossing it on the evening of 5 October 1607 when the assassins struck; it is an ordinary stone bridge that people cross without knowing.

The Gothic campanile

Rebuilt in the second half of the 15th century after its predecessor came down in the storm of 1410, the bell tower is the oldest thing standing on the site and the only substantial piece of the medieval church left -- everything below it was rebuilt in the 18th century.

The altarpieces

Four altars inside carry scenes from the life of Santa Fosca by 17th- and 18th-century painters including Francesco Migliori and Filippo Bianchi -- parish-scale work rather than famous names, which is exactly what most Venetian churches actually contain.