San Moisè

Stand still for a moment in the small square and look up. The stone in front of you is pale and crowded. Faces, garlands, scrolls and drapery cover almost every surface, and grey streaks of Venetian damp run through all of it. Behind you, shoppers move along the wide street toward Saint Mark's Square. Here the noise drops a little. You are looking at the front of San Moisè, one of the most argued-over church facades in the city.

The name means Saint Moses. That surprises many visitors, because Moses is a prophet of the Old Testament, and we rarely think of him as a church saint. Venice is different. The city has several churches named for Old Testament figures. Walk a little further and you can find San Zaccaria, for the father of John the Baptist, and San Samuele, for the prophet Samuel. In the Venetian tradition, these ancient figures were honoured as saints in their own right.

There is a second story behind the name, and it belongs to local tradition rather than firm record. According to one account, an early church stood here long before the building you see now. Later, a patrician called Moisè Venier paid to rebuild it. Some say the dedication to Moses was chosen partly to honour him, so the prophet and the patron share one name. It is a very Venetian idea. Faith and family pride sit side by side.

That idea of family pride becomes much clearer when you study the facade. The front you see was finished in the second half of the seventeenth century, in the full Baroque style. Baroque, for anyone unfamiliar, was a style of movement and drama, full of curves and deep shadows. The facade was designed by the architect Alessandro Tremignon. Much of the sculpture is by Heinrich Meyring, a German-born sculptor whom Venetians called Enrico Merengo.

Now look carefully at who appears on this church. You might expect saints and angels at the centre. Instead, the most prominent figures are members of the Fini family, who paid for the work. Their busts and their memorial sit proudly on the front. Vincenzo Fini was a wealthy man, and his family had bought their place among the Venetian nobility. This facade worked like a public statement. It told every passer-by that the Fini had arrived.

Not everyone admired it. In the nineteenth century the English critic John Ruskin wrote about the buildings of Venice with great passion. He loved the older Gothic churches. He disliked this one intensely, and he described it as one of the worst examples of its style. For Ruskin, a church front that celebrated a rich family more than God was a sign of decline. His judgement shaped how many travellers saw San Moisè for decades.

So here is a question for you, as you stand in front of it. Do you agree with him? Today many people see the facade differently. They see energy and skill. Look at how deeply the stone is cut. Look at how the light moves across it through the day. In the morning the carvings look soft. Late in the afternoon the shadows grow longer, and every face becomes sharper.

When you step inside, the mood changes. The space is darker and quieter than the street. Your eyes need a moment to adjust. Then the high altar comes into view, and it is something unusual. Instead of a simple table with columns, the altar is carved as a rocky mountain. This is Mount Sinai, where Moses received the tablets of the law. The sculpture is again associated with Meyring.

Take your time with that altar. It is a stage set made of stone. The rock seems rough and wild, quite unlike the polished marble you might expect in a church. Look for the figure of Moses and the tablets. The idea is simple and theatrical. The church is named for Moses, so the most important place inside shows the most important moment of his life.

Around the walls you will find paintings by Venetian artists from several centuries. One work showing Christ washing the feet of his disciples is attributed to Tintoretto, the great sixteenth-century painter of Venice. Lighting inside can be low, so let your eyes rest on each canvas for a while. Many details only appear slowly, as the darkness gives way to colour.

Now for a detail most visitors walk straight past. Look down at the floor near the entrance area. Somewhere beneath your feet lies John Law, a Scottish financier. In the early eighteenth century he created a bold paper-money system in France. It grew into one of the first great financial bubbles in history, and then it collapsed. Law left France in disgrace. He spent his final years in Venice and died here in 1729. A man who changed the history of money rests quietly in this church floor.

Step back outside and notice the setting. Just beside the church stands a hotel with a much more modern front. The contrast is sharp. Old Baroque stone sits next to a twentieth-century facade, and the two buildings almost touch. Behind the church, a small canal runs under a bridge. Gondolas often pass here, and you may hear the call of a gondolier before the boat comes round the corner.

This corner of Venice has always been about display. The long street nearby is lined with expensive shops. The Fini family wanted to be seen here for the same reason that luxury brands want to be seen here today. It is one of the busiest routes between the railway side of the city and Saint Mark's Square. San Moisè was built to catch the eye of everyone who walked past.

Before you move on, look once more at the facade. Find one face among the carvings and follow it as you walk away. Notice how quickly the crowd carries you forward, and how few people stop. You did. Somewhere behind that crowded stone, a mountain of rock rises in the dark, and a banker from Scotland lies under the floor. Venice keeps many stories in small places like this one.