The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, commonly abbreviated to the Frari, is a church located in the Campo dei Frari at the heart of the San Polo district of Venice, Italy. It is one of the largest churches in the city and it has the status of a minor basilica. The church is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. The imposing edifice is built of brick and is one of the three notable churches in the city that retain most of their Venetian Gothic appearance. In common with many Franciscan churches, the exterior is rather plain, even on the front facade. The exterior features a bell tower that was repaired in the early 2000s for structural problems. The interior is notable for many tombs and works of art that accumulated in the centuries after it was built. It contains many very grand wall monuments to distinguished Venetians buried in the church, including a number of Doges. Many of these are important works in the history of Venetian sculpture, including that by Donatello. Paintings in situ include two large and important altarpieces by Titian, the Assumption of the Virgin on the high altar and the Pesaro Madonna in a chapel. The basilica also contains the only rood screen still in place in a church in Venice, a vestige of the Venetian Gothic architecture that preceded Venetian Renaissance architecture.
History
In 1231, under Doge Jacopo Tiepolo, the city donated land at this site to establish a monastery and church belonging to the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor. This edifice proved too small and a three-nave church was begun in 1250, but not completed until 1338. Work almost immediately began on its much larger replacement, the current church, which took more than a century to build. The new church inverted the original orientation, thus placing the facade so that it faces the plaza and small canal. The work was started under Jacopo Celega, but completed by his son Pier Paolo. The campanile, the second tallest in the city after that of San Marco, was completed in 1396. Under the patronage of Giovanni Corner, the Chapel of San Marco was added in 1420. In 1432-1434, Bishop Vicenza Pietro Miani built the chapel of San Pietro next to the bell-tower. The facade was not completed until 1440. The cornice is surmounted by three statues (1516) by Lorenzo Bregno. The main altar was consecrated in 1469. In 1478, the Pesaro family commissioned a chapel in the apse of the church. On 27 May 1492, the church was consecrated with the name of Santa Maria Gloriosa. The Frari is a parish church of the Vicariate of San Polo-Santa Croce-Dorsoduro. Other churches of the parish are San Barnaba, San Ludovico Vescovo, Santa Maria del Soccorso, and Santa Margherita. In the sixteenth century, however, devotional life changed significantly; being private, less moral, and contained people from various countries. The congregations enlarged only when a famous preacher was preaching, or a major feast was taking place. All connections had a relationship with the brotherhood involved in the church, as most of the other chapel areas were designed for private groups. This church is notable to hosting funerals and other gatherings for the deceased. Also, in later times, there was some crime and mischief going on with the church. As a result, the Franciscans had been expelled from the church during the nineteenth century, the church was restored to the order in 1922. The bell tower went through a structural intervention from 1904 to the 1990s that helped fix the cracks in the bell tower. Titian, the most prominent sixteenth-century Venetian painter, is interred in the Frari.
Architectural Features
The church overall is in the Venetian style, as the walls were made of red brick, the beams were decorated on the inside, and details were made of Istrian stone. In common with many Franciscan churches, the exterior is rather plain, even on the front facade. It also has Roman influence, because the columns in the nave contain large cylindrical shafts. The church also contains six smaller chapels as well as the main chapel, three on each side of the main chapel. The baptistery and sacristy were featured along with two other chapels, making the church a family chapel. The church overall has a vaulted Gothic rib ceiling, making the interior volume large. The church does not have a central dome, making it unique. The materials used were mostly hard and resonant, from marble and Istrian stone tile floors, to masonry walls, and vaults with brick covered with intonaco.
Bell tower structural intervention Following the collapse of St. Mark's bell tower, cracks started to form on the Frari bell tower in 1904. This led to a structural intervention at the Frari. An investigation of the Frari bell tower began in 1990. With structural problems identified in 2000, the tower was investigated deeply in 2001-2003 using a monitoring system to identify crack patterns. The stress was also measured using flat-jack testing. Overall, the tower was inspected geotecnically in great detail, including the use of standard penetration tests and digging through the bell tower foundation. A structural analysis of the bell tower was then performed, and the forces and loads needed to fix the tower were calculated. After the investigation, several instruments, including a crack-gauge and a strain gauge were used to keep track of the work on the bell tower in real time. Strengthening interventions were conducted to keep the tower safe and used with a structural-geotechnical monitoring system. The first phase involved using a steel cable connecting one of the columns to the bell tower of the Frari. The second phase involved injecting mortar into the soil so that the soil would be strengthened in order to accommodate the increased stress. The most information derived during the first phase came directly from the bell tower and the precision leveling. The mortar was grouted to determine the velocity of the different intervention phases. At the end, the settlement velocity decreased. The third and final phase of the intervention involved a structural joint between the tower and the church. Although it took six months to execute and resulted in extensive deformations in the tower, it was successful and has prevented damage to the bell tower and parts of the church. Overall, soil-fracture intervention and structural-joint execution both use the direct pendulum. The structural joint contributes to prevention of future cracks when seismic loads occur.
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