Le Zitelle (officially Santa Maria della Presentazione), or “The Spinsters”[1] is a church in Venice, Italy.

[5] Founders Adrianna Contarini, Paola Dona, Isabetta Grimani, and Lucrezia Priuli held the building for a few months before recognizing they needed an upgrade due to the increase of girls living at the house in July 1560.

[7] The site was most intriguing for the women founders due to its visibility from the shore of the Bacino and to its untouchable nature, removed from the rest of the city.

[12] The only major additions that were documented were the building of a few fireplaces, a new kitchen, laundry, and swapping the floors and ceilings for lumber.

[20] This attribution generally comes from Giovanni Stringa's 1604 edition of the famous guidebook, Venetia, citta nobilissima, wherein he raves about the new church.

[20] He attests that it was built by Giacomo Bozzetto, a builder employed for the construction of the Palazzo Ducale, following a design by Andrea Palladio.

[19] While many of the governors had ties to Palladio, it is much more likely that the Church was designed to bring civic piety to the Giudecca having been constructed after Il Redentore by an unknown architect.

[24] The Fourth Building Campaign, 1596-97: West Wing is Completed After all the development of the Casa delle Zitelle in the recent decades there only remained two goals that had not been accomplished: quarters for the Governatrici and Madonna.

[29] The high altar is set in its own barrel-vaulted rectilinear space with lateral windows to provide natural lighting from the courtyard behind.

The Presentation of Mary at the Temple by Francesco Bassano adorns the backsplash of this altar, encrusted in marble and gold tabernacle.

This is framed within a larger temple front with two-story Corinthian pilasters with a massive hemispherical, thermal window above the door.

The Church's front facade is covered in flat, white stucco which contrasts the red clay tile roof.

Residential portions of the complex are of brick construction, with three divisions of windows, and topped with the same red clay tile roof.