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The Cornaro della Regina Chapel is the only remaining
part of the original church of SS. Apostoli. The chapel was commissioned
by powerful and wealthy Cav. Proc. Giorgio
Cornaro (B-29), brother of Queen Caterina
Cornaro (B-31), after 1483 and completed by 1499. The design
is usually attributed to Mauro Codussi,
the leading Venetian architect of the 15th century.
Lieberman
comments on the interior of the chapel in Renaissance Architecture
in Venice [pl. 49], "The chapel is very unusual for Venice
in the last years of the 15th century because of the way the free-standing
corner columns, the strongly projecting cornices they carry and
the arches of the pendentives are distinct from the wall surfaces."
The corner columns are strongly carved with a variety of symbolic
figures, including eagles, horns of plenty, and festoons of pomegranates.
 At
the altar of the chapel is Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's painting
The Communion of Santa Lucia, 1748, commissioned by Cornaro
family members of a later generation who are probably pictured
among the surrounding attendants. Tiepolo's study draft of the
painting is in the collection at Castello Sforzesco at Milan.
In the chapel
are the funeral monuments of Cav. Proc. Giorgio Cornaro himself,
1527, and of his remarkable father Cav. Marco
Cornaro (B-16), 1511. The monument of Cav. Marco is attributed
to Tullio Lombardo.
Several Cornaro family members of later generations, including
Andrea Cornaro (H-24 [prob.]), who died 1646, Girolamo Cornaro,
who died 1654, and Giovanni Cornaro, are also buried in the chapel
and identified by marble tablets. The tomb of Queen Caterina Cornaro
herself was located in the chapel for 70 years until removed to
a new funeral monument created for
her in the Church of S. Salvatore
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