The church of Sant'Aponal (which in Venetian means Sant'Apollinare) was a place of Catholic worship, now deconsecrated, located in the San Polo district of the city of Venice.
The church was founded in 1034 perhaps by the noble Sciavola and
Rampana families from Ravenna who named it after the protector of their
city of origin. In 1400 it was elevated to a collegiate church and it
was decided to give it a bell tower in 1407 (completed in 1430). It was
rebuilt in late Gothic style in 1450; other restorations took place in
1570, in 1600 the interior was adapted to a single hall and other
restorations were carried out in 1791.
In 1806, with the
concentration of the parishes decided by the government of the Kingdom
of Italy, it was closed and passed into the availability of state
property; from 1810 the dispersion of its furnishings began.
Sold
at auction in 1840, it was immediately sold to a group of devotees who
reopened it in 1851. In addition to the few surviving altars, it was
placed on the main altar from the church of Santa Giustina di Castello.
On the same occasion, the portal from the church of Sant'Elena was
erected.
In 1929 the portal was returned to the reopened church
of Sant'Elena and was replaced by a Gothic bas-relief above the portal,
a work of unknown origin, previously walled up in the apse of the same
church. Closed for worship between 1965 and 1979 and deconsecrated, it
was used as a municipal archive and today as a deposit mainly for works
of art.
According to tradition, the body of the prophet Jonah and
a thorn from Jesus' crown were kept in the church.
The facade retains the original Gothic features, such as the bell tower. The interior, on the other hand, is the result of the seventeenth-century renovation. A small side entrance made it accessible from the Rialto wrinkle. Parish functions were interrupted in the mid-twentieth century.