Situated close by, also commissioned by Duodo and designed by Scamozzi are six chapels collectively known as the Santuario delle Sette Chiese ("Sanctuary of the Seven Churches", sometimes "Jubilee Sanctuary of the Seven Churches"), the seventh church being the church of San Giorgio attached to the villa itself. This church holds the remains of the first Christian martyrs.
The chapels became popular places of pilgrimage, when pope Paul V granted pilgrims visiting the sanctuary equal indulgences with those visiting the seven basilicas of Rome, after which the chapels are named. The chapels are positioned along a cobbled path - a votive route - which leads to the esplanade on which the villa and the final church stands. The chapels contain reredos by Palma il Giovane.
The chapels are all similar in design, approximately six metres square, the front having an entrance contained in a segmented arch flanked by pilasters which support a pediment. The sides of the small buildings are pierced by lunette windows. The white rendered walls with decoration in natural dressed stone match the villa and church at the completion of the route. In appearance the churches are not unlike the many, and far more modern, small family mausoleums found in thousands of cemeteries in Italy and France, testimony to the influence of Scamozzi in everyday, and often seemingly unremarkable, architecture.
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