Church of Santa Margherita, Romanesque church in Treviso, Italy.
The Church of Santa Margherita is a deconsecrated Gothic brick church in Treviso, built from 1282 on the model of the Eremitani in Padua, without a transept. Its single 42-metre nave, 14.25 metres wide, is closed by three flat-ended apsidal chapels; the facade has two single lancet windows and a large rose window but no portal, and access is through a small side door.
Founded by Augustinian Eremitani friars who settled in the San Paolo district in 1266, the church was built from 1282, its dimensions fixed by a decree of the Council of the Trecento on 24 March 1282 and modelled on the Eremitani of Padua. Deconsecrated under Napoleon, it became a hay store, then a military riding school in 1870 and a gymnasium from 1967 to 1997. Restored between 2014 and 2020, it has housed the Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce since 2021.
The church was the reference place of worship for Treviso's small but powerful Florentine community in the Middle Ages, whose members worked there as bankers, merchants and notaries. On 29 April 1364 the funeral of Pietro Alighieri, Dante's son, was held here, arranged by fra Liberale and Leonardo di Baldinaccio, who commissioned his tomb for the cloister. Since 2021 the building houses the Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce.
The former church stands by the Ponte Santa Margherita, a short walk from the Quartiere Latino, south of the Sile. It has been the seat of the Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce since 2021, so visits follow museum opening rather than church services. The surviving cloister houses the Archivio di Stato di Treviso.
The walls are in brick, not stone: the facade is a simple gabled wall with two single-lancet windows and a large rose window, and it has no portal, entry being through a small door. Inside, the cross vaults have red brick ribs called "botazi", a detail typical of the Venetian building tradition.
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