The church of Sant'Anna e San Gaetano Thiene is in Sant'Anna di Chioggia, a village of the municipality, and is made up of two buildings: the old church, from the early eighteenth century, and the new one, from the seventies of the twentieth century. The old church was created in 1704 by enlarging a chapel already dedicated to Saint Anne; Mass is still said there, but today it mainly hosts cultural events and theatre performances.
What to see
The old church is plain, with its east-facing entrance beneath a large semicircular window. The bell tower, 18 metres high, dates from 1771, and two inscriptions on the north side record the work of 1771 and 1882. Inside, in two niches, are eighteenth-century wooden statues: Saint Anne with her daughter Mary, and the Madonna and Child with Saint Dominic. Behind the high altar and on the ceiling are two large copies painted in 1985 by Evelino Remotto, of Titian's Assumption and Raphael's Transfiguration.
The new church, promoted by Don Antonio Marcolongo, was begun in 1971 when Bishop Giovanni Battista Piasentini laid the first stone. It is a modern building, 35 metres long and 24 wide. On the inner façade is a late seventeenth-century wooden group with the Glory of Mary, the Trinity and the Madonna, formerly in the old church; the altar of the presbytery, Baroque and inlaid, is from the seventeenth century and comes from a patrician house near Padua. There is also a Saint Anne with her daughter Mary carved in 1982 by Vincenzo Moroder, and the Stations of the Cross are ceramic high reliefs by Loris Maserà from the Polesine, of 1983.
Visiting
The new church faces the square named after Tiziano Baldin. Service times and the calendar of events in the old church should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
In the new church look for the statue of Our Lady of Fatima: according to the sources it was crowned by Pope John Paul II in 1987.
