Architecture
The church and its bell tower are built of dark red-brown brick, without plastering. The bell tower stands separately. The main entrance to the church faces west, but the most impressive facade is the colonnaded east side, which faces a canal.
The colourful stone mosaic floor of the church, including the yoked "cocks on the floor of San Donato, in Murano, who are carrying a fox" dates from around 1140, and bears superficial repairs. The relics of San Donato are located in a marble sarcophagus.
Behind the altar there are four rib bones, hanging from wires. The bones are more than 1 metre long. According to legend, these are bones of the dragon slain by St. Donatus in Greece. It is possible that these bones are from large extinct Pleistocene mammals.
Read more about this topic: Church Of Santa Maria E San Donato
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider, and should be wise in season and not fetter himself with duties which will embitter his days and spoil him for his proper work.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
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