In 2025 the Venice Ophthalmology Summer School will take place in the atmosphere of a more historical Venice, in a prestigious location currently known as “Don Orione Artigianelli Center”, next to the Accademia Bridge and the Gallerie dell’Accademia, with direct overview on Giudecca Canal (the Zattere quayside). In fact, the present name refers only to the history closest to us, from the early twentieth century.

But the monumental complex, as always in Venice, has much more ancient origins and, as often happens, religious ones. A religious order called the Gesuati, (because often repeating the name of Jesus) dedicated to the care of the sick and religious preaching, is present in Venice since the middle of 1400 and they promoted the building of the little church of St. Mary of the Visitation (1494, firstly church, then the library of the largest and neighboring Dominican church of Santa Maria dei Gesuati and now privately owned) with the adjoining monastery. The church is the first example of Renaissance building in Venice.

In 1669, the monastery and church were purchased by the Dominican  order, a major order of Friars Preachers, who erected the new church of “Santa Maria del Rosario” (or Gesuati, 1724-1736) and began the extension of the monastery, as we see it today, under the direction of the architect Giorgio Massari. A clear and prestigious example of Baroque art in Venice.