The church of San Pantalon is a religious building in the city of Venice, in the Dorsoduro district. It overlooks the square of the same name, not far from Campo Santa Margherita. San Pantalón is the Venetian correspondent of the martyr San Pantaleone. San Pantaleone of Nicomedia in Bithynia has always enjoyed a particular devotion in Venice: he was a doctor, who lived between the third and fourth centuries, and was martyred during the persecutions of Diocletian on July 27 of a year between 305 and 310.
The news about the origins of the church are uncertain and
contradictory. Some affirm that it was rebuilt in 1009 by the
Jordanians, but others postpone the date to 1025 due to the concurrence
of the Signolo and the Dandolos. It is not even clear when it was
erected as a parish: perhaps in 1222, when the building would have been
rebuilt and Angelo Semitecolo appointed parish priest. Between 1684 and
1704 it was completely rebuilt, because it was unsafe, based on a
project by the Treviso architect Francesco Comin, who decided to rotate
its longitudinal axis by ninety degrees, so that the façade looked
directly onto the campo. It was consecrated in 1745 by the patriarch
Alvise Foscari.
As a parish, San Pantalon is included in the
Vicariate of San Polo-Santa Croce-Dorsoduro, part of the Patriarchate of
Venice. The title of parish must have been attributed to it since its
origins and its circumscription was very vast; in 1810 it was
considerably reduced with the establishment of the parishes of the Frari
and Carmini and with the expansion of the pre-existing one of the
Tolentini, a church of which today it is a branch parish.
It was
originally affiliated with the church of San Silvestro.
External
The facade remained unfinished.
Internal
The
church is known for the Martyrdom and Glory of San Pantaleone on the
ceiling, by Gian Antonio Fumiani, painted between 1680 and 1704. It is
not a fresco, but a vast painting on canvas with the telero technique ,
which measures 443 square meters.
Another notable painting is San
Pantalon healing a child, the last work by Paolo Veronese (1587). In the
chapel of the Sacred Nail, it is worth remembering the Coronation of the
Virgin by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d'Alemagna (1444), and an
Annunciation from the mid-14th century, attributed to Paolo Veneziano.
In the church of San Pantalon a perfect copy of the Holy House of
Loreto was built in 1744 by the priest of the church. You can see a
Madonna of Loreto, a wooden sculpture, and frescoes by Pietro Longhi.
The organ above the entrance door is a work by Gaetano Callido,
dating back to 1803.