Spirito Santo, Renaissance church building in Venice, Italy

Spirito Santo is a single-nave church with a facade facing the Giudecca canal. Its facade is oddly proportioned: the ground-floor portal and two side windows with pediments suggest a grander initial design, while the upper windows and roof are smaller and less carefully finished. Inside, 17th-century altars line the walls, and the high altar is flanked by a pair of twisted columns. The inner facade is largely occupied by the Paruta family funeral monument.

Construction began in 1506 under architect Antonio Abbondi, known as Scarpagnino, a major figure in Venetian architecture. Abbondi had previously worked on the reconstruction of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi before taking on this religious project.

The church belongs to the parish of the Gesuati and is used only rarely, for funerals or weddings requested by a family. Its name comes from the Augustinian monastery founded on the site in 1483, whose nuns were notorious: the community's founder, Maria Caroldo, was tried for immorality and squandering communal assets.

The church faces the Giudecca Canal along the Zattere, in Dorsoduro, beside the calle del Monastero that separates it from the former Scuola dello Spirito Santo. It is a subsidiary of the Gesuati parish and opens only rarely, for funerals or weddings requested by families, so check locally before crossing the city to see it.

The interior façade is almost entirely filled by the funeral monument of the Paruta family; one of its members, the historian Paolo Paruta, is buried inside the church. The building is a subsidiary of the Gesuati church and is used only rarely, for family-requested funerals or weddings.