Venice:
The Scacciadiavoli
One of Venice's Scacciadiavoli
Surmounting the door to the campanile (bell tower) of the church of Santa Maria Formosa is a stone carving of a grotesque head. It is known as a scacciadiavoli (chaser away of devils) and was intended to ward off evil spirits.
The head horrified the Victorian writer John Ruskin (1819-1900), who wrote: "Leering in bestial degradation, too foul to be either pictured or described, or to be beheld for more than an instant."
There are other such scacciadiavoli to be seen above the doorways of Venetian bell towers.
The head horrified the Victorian writer John Ruskin (1819-1900), who wrote: "Leering in bestial degradation, too foul to be either pictured or described, or to be beheld for more than an instant."
There are other such scacciadiavoli to be seen above the doorways of Venetian bell towers.