A red church with a Romanesque bell tower on the main street of Oderzo. Hermit friars lived beside it in the twelfth century, Dominican nuns took it over in the sixteenth, Napoleon closed the convent in 1806, and the parish still uses it.
At a glance
The church of Santa Maria Maddalena stands on via Garibaldi, in the centre of Oderzo, with its bell tower on the street. Its origins go back to about the year 1000; a hermitage beside it is recorded in a bull of Pope Lucius III of October 1185, and the hermit friars of the Maddalena also served the nearby sanctuary of Santa Maria del Palù. Around the middle of the sixteenth century the friars ceded church and monastery to Dominican nuns, who kept the convent until the Napoleonic decree of 28 July 1806 suppressed it and merged the community into San Paolo of Treviso. The Ministry of Culture catalogue dates the church and bell tower as they stand to the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries; of the medieval building only the sacristy and the Romanesque tower survive the later rebuildings. The church belongs to the parish of Oderzo.
Key facts
- Origins: about 1000; hermitage recorded in 1185 (bull of Lucius III)
- Hermit friars: of Santa Maria Maddalena, also serving Santa Maria del Palù
- Dominican nuns: from the mid 16th century until the suppression of 28 July 1806
- Present building: church and bell tower of the 14th–15th century (Ministry of Culture catalogue, record 0500365456); sacristy and Romanesque tower from the medieval church
- Inside: an altarpiece of the early 17th century on the high altar; burials of citizens of Oderzo
- Owner: the Catholic parish; the Lions Club plaque on the wall sums up the story
- GPS: 45.77961, 12.49174 · Open in Google Maps
History
The hermits of the Maddalena were one of the small religious communities of the medieval Veneto; their house in Oderzo is older than most of the town’s surviving buildings, and the Romanesque tower is the witness of it. The nuns who replaced them in the sixteenth century rebuilt the church, and their monastery lasted until the French suppression of 1806 emptied the convents of the region.
The plaque on the facade, placed by the local Lions Club like the others on the historic buildings of via Garibaldi, gives the sequence in four lines: church of the Maddalena, formerly of the hermit friars, then of the Dominican nuns, 12th–13th centuries.
What you see
A plain church with a gabled front in red plaster, a round window above the door and a small portico of three arches on the street side; beside it the tall brick bell tower with a belfry of arched openings and a low pyramid roof. The photographs were taken from the crossing on via Garibaldi, in the evening light.
Nearby
- Palazzo Foscolo — the Pinacoteca Alberto Martini, on the same street
Gallery
Sources
- Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali — Chiesa e torre campanaria di Santa Maria Maddalena, Oderzo: the address on via Garibaldi, the dating to the 14th–15th century, the parish church with bell tower, the ownership
- Locus Globus — Chiesa di S. Maria Maddalena, Oderzo: the origins around 1000, the bull of Lucius III of 1185, the hermits and Santa Maria del Palù, the Dominican nuns of the mid 16th century, the suppression of 28 July 1806, the surviving sacristy and Romanesque tower, the altarpiece and the burials
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