San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

On 27 February 1774 the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore collapsed. It stood behind Palladio's church on the island facing St Mark's across the basin, and the new tower, with a pointed spire in place of the old onion dome, was finished only in 1791. Those are exactly the limits the museum gives for this canvas, painted after 1774 and before 1791.

Guardi was in his sixties and seventies in those years, and San Giorgio was a view he painted again and again. The church had been begun to Palladio's design in 1566, and its white façade went up only after the architect's death. This canvas is a little over half a metre wide, and it was made as a pair with a view of Santa Maria della Salute of the same size, which hangs in this gallery too.