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With one hundred forty four churches spread throughout Venice and its lagoon, churches are an important aspect of Venetian culture. While many of these churches have been closed or repurposed, 88 churches are still active for tourist visits, services, and other religious activities. Many of these churches were established as early as the tenth century and have since undergone several reconstructions and renovations. Each reconstruction dramatically changed the architectural style of the church’s exterior, while the interior often maintained some of the original features. In many churches, the floors have remained consistent and many contain artifacts such as tombs and plaques. While these artifacts are made of stone, years of wearing from parishioners walking over the artifacts combined with flooding as a result of acqua alta, have worn down many of the artifacts’ inscriptions and designs. Since 2002, Worcester Polytechnic Institute has cataloged and assessed the condition of the church floor artifacts in Venice and its Lagoon. This project consolidated all past data and artifact assessments to create a priority for restoration ranking list as well as a database of all churches and church floor artifacts on Venipedia. This database can be easily modified to include updated information about a church or artifact as the conditions and city of Venice are constantly evolving.

The final goal of the Venice Church Floors project of 2012 is to assist in preserving the artifacts in church floors throughout Venice with the creation of a database that can be easily modified to include information about an artifact which can be used to prioritize future restoration efforts.

Our Project Objectives

1. Organize and validate information on artifacts in church floors from previous IQP groups.

2. Integrate the data into Venipedia and update the information for churches that have not yet been visited.

3. Assess the condition of the artifacts and provide a ranked listing of damaged floor artifacts, highlighting those that require immediate attention.

Below is a map of the churches in Venice. The height of the 3-dimensional columns represents the number of artifacts assessed per church floor.

This is an example of a Church Floor Artifact that can be seen in San Giorgio Maggiore in Isola.