Chiesa di San Samuele (Church of St. Samuel), Venice

The Church of Saint Samuel sits in a small, well-placed square between the Grassi and Malipiero Palaces-prime real estate by Venetian standards. It is one of the few churches in the city that manages to pull off a view of the Grand Canal, quietly reminding visitors that even places of worship here knew the value of a good address.

Dedicated not to a Catholic saint but to the Old Testament prophet Samuel, it already breaks convention before you step inside. Its nave and façade were remodeled in 1685, but the late-Gothic apse escaped the makeover. Restored beginning in 1999, it preserves a rare cycle of early Venetian Renaissance frescoes-survivors in a city that has lost many. Look up, and you’re seeing something Venice doesn’t hand out lightly: originals...

The bell tower adds another twist. Built of white Istrian stone and rising about thirty meters, it’s widely admired-despite the small detail that part of it disappears into a neighboring building. San Samuele remains an active parish, which also means it keeps its own hours. Catch it open if you can; the Biennale often helps, when the church opens its doors to exhibitions alongside its historical layers.

Now for the Casanova chapter. This was Giacomo Casanova’s parish church. His parents married here in 1724, and he was baptized here a year later. As a boy, he attended services; as a teenager, he was assigned to the church and studied Italian language and poetry under Abbot Schiavo. On February 14, 1740-just shy of his fifteenth birthday-he underwent the tonsure ceremony, performed by the Patriarch of Venice himself. Humility, officially achieved...

Things moved quickly. Casanova delivered his first sermon here and impressed the congregation. But the pull of secular life proved stronger than Latin grammar and theological riddles. He refused to choose between God and women-and soon enough, a full head of hair, or a well-chosen wig, covered the tonsure entirely.

During his second sermon, after an evening of wine with aristocrats, he lost his place, fainted, and collapsed on the church floor. The end of a clerical career... Disgraced but undeterred, he left for Padua, earned a law degree, and began the life Venice would never forget.