La Maddalena, or Santa Maria Maddalena, stands in the Cannaregio district of Venice. A religious building owned by the patrician Balbo family existed on the site by 1222. In the mid-fourteenth century the church was enlarged, after the Venetian Senate established a public holiday for Mary Magdalene's feast, and a watchtower was converted into a bell tower.
Tommaso Temanza rebuilt it entirely in 1780. His design is circular and inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The interior has a hexagonal plan with four side chapels and a presbytery.
A portal with Masonic symbols stands over the door, probably linked to the Balbo family's membership in the Knights Templar. A fifteenth-century bas-relief of the Madonna and Child is on the outside of the apse. The bell tower was demolished in 1888.
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