San Pantalon

Why go

Fumiani's ceiling turns the story of Saint Pantaleon into an overhead spectacle of martyrdom and heavenly ascent. It offers a different kind of church-art experience from a sequence of framed altarpieces. Other works, including Veronese's depiction of the saint healing a boy, give the subject a more intimate counterpart.

What to look for

• Fumiani’s ceiling depicts the Martyrdom and Apotheosis of Saint Pantalon.
• Veronese’s Saint Pantalon Healing a Boy offers another portrayal of the patron saint.

The full story

San Pantalon is the Venetian form of Saint Pantaleon's name. The seventeenth-century parish church places that patron saint at the centre of its most conspicuous work, painted by Gian Antonio Fumiani between 1680 and 1704. Although often described as a fresco, the ceiling work is painted on canvas. Its perspective is designed to be seen from below, making figures and architectural illusion appear to extend above the viewer. Fumiani's training in perspective painting helps explain why the composition works as an apparent opening of space rather than simply a picture attached to a ceiling. The church's other paintings allow a change of scale and mood. Veronese's Saint Pantalon Healing a Boy connects the patron to an act of healing, while a Coronation of the Virgin by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d'Alemagna represents an earlier Venetian artistic language. Together they show how different periods and pictorial methods occupy the same devotional building.

Useful to know

• Check parish visiting information before making the ceiling the reason for a dedicated trip.
• When entry is possible, compare the overhead spectacle with the paintings at eye level.

Your next visit

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