Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Penitenti

Church complex on the Canale di Cannaregio, built from 1730 as a refuge for women leaving prostitution — a remarkable piece of Venetian social history.

Santa Maria delle Penitenti is a church complex on the Canale di Cannaregio, built from 1730 as a refuge for women seeking to leave prostitution. The institution, referred to by contemporaries as a conservatorio, provided housing, work, and religious guidance to these women. After the dissolution in 1797, the complex served elderly women for centuries, then refugees from Istria and Dalmatia after 1945, and today provides care for those in need. The building faces the Canale di Cannaregio and represents a chapter of Venetian urban history that reaches far beyond art and architecture.