Scholars have hitherto given little attention to the lost late-medieval Benedictine church of San Giorgio Maggiore
in Venice. The main documentary sources (a 1550-51 book of accounts and a slightly later ceremonial)
have only been partially studied, while a superficial interpretation of them led scholars to gross misunderstandings.
A re-examination of the documents allows us to formulate a new proposal for the reconstruction of
the abbey church and, in particular, of the choirs and the presbytery. The latter had a rather complex arrangement,
similar to that of the main chapel of St. Mark; this parallelism is even more significant if we consider
the annual doge’s visits to the monastery on the feast of St. Stephen. The main chapel restoration carried out
in the mid 16th century could be interpreted as the first stage of an architectural renovation that could be
extended to all the medieval church, following the example of Giulio Romano’s intervention in the sister abbey
church of San Benedetto Po, near Mantua (1540s). The following ambitious project of a new monumental
church by Palladio, however, just fifteen years later, frustrated this hypothetical original plan.
