Santa Maria della Fava, Venice, Baroque church in Castello district, Venice, Italy.

Santa Maria della Fava is a Baroque church in the Castello sestiere of Venice, a few steps from Campo San Bortolomio near Rialto. Its facade on the campo de la Fava is unfinished except for the doorway topped by a marble tympanum, flanked by two empty semicircular niches. The interior has a single nave under a lunetted barrel vault, with three chapels per side between Corinthian pilasters, and eight statues of saints and evangelists by Giuseppe Bernardi along the nave.

Construction began around 1500 as a modest structure and underwent major transformations over two centuries by leading architects. The Baroque redesign and final shape came from work by Gaspari and Massari in the first half of the 1700s.

The church displays paintings by major 18th-century Venetian artists in its chapels, reflecting how the city honored its spiritual traditions through art. Visitors can observe how local painters depicted religious scenes, shaping the artistic character of the period.

The church faces the small Campo de la Fava, a few steps from Campo San Bortolomio and close to Rialto, in the Castello sestiere. The facade is unfinished: only the doorway, topped by a marble tympanum, is complete, and the two large semicircular niches beside it remain empty. Look up for the two tall, unfinished bell towers flanking the apse.

The name has several explanations: the area's bean trade or bean-cake shops, or the Fava family of Ferrara who may have funded the church. A legend says a salt-and-bean smuggler knelt before the Madonna painted on a wall of Ca' Dolce, his salt vanished, and he escaped prison; the church was then built to house the icon.