The Sotoportego di Corte Nova

The Sotoportego di Corte Nova

Thanks to the precious support of SaveVenice we are going to discover some curiosities about Sotoportego di Corte Nova.
It is a portico between Corte Nova and Calle Zorzi, in the Sestiere di Castello: on the pavement (masegni) there is a red stone that, according to legend, if trampled on, would lead to bad luck and misfortune!

The legend begins with the terrible plague of 1630 that did not spare the inhabitants of any area of the city of Venice, except, miraculously, all the residents of Corte Nova who were protected, according to popular tales, by the presence of the portico.

Legend has it that a woman named Giovanna, who lived in Corte Nova, had a miraculous vision of the Madonna.
In the apparition, Our Lady told her that, in order to avoid the plague, the inhabitants of the place should have painted a picture representing her image and that of Saints Rocco, Sebastian and Justina and hang it on the wall of the sotoportego Zorzi.
In addition to the painting suggested by the Madonna, there was also another painting representing the Virgin in front of it.

In order to infect the inhabitants of Corte Nova the plague would have had to pass through that sacred portico.
As Our Lady had predicted, however, her image stopped the disease that ‘fell to the ground’, among the grey masegni, right where the red stone that symbolizes the defeat of the plague still appears today!

Anne Hawley, member of the Save Venice project committee and Emeritus Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, explores this miraculous place which was recently restored in 2016 by conservation students and lecturers from the Veneto Institute for Cultural Heritage with the support of Save Venice.