Chiesa di San Bartolomeo

Baroque church near the Rialto, once the parish church of Venice's German merchant community, now a cultural space.

San Bartolomeo is a church on the Campo San Bartolomeo in Venice, just steps from the Rialto Bridge in the sestiere of San Marco. Legendarily founded in 840, it was for centuries closely tied to the German-speaking merchants who resided in the nearby Fondaco dei Tedeschi. These traders from the Holy Roman Empire richly endowed the church and made it their community center. The present building is an early Baroque structure from the early 18th century. Since the 1980s, the church has been deconsecrated and repurposed as a secular cultural venue for exhibitions.