The church of San Canciano or San Canziano (in Venetian, San Cansian)
is a sacred building in Venice, located in the Cannaregio district and
overlooking the small square of the same name.
It is dedicated to
the martyrs and brothers of Aquileia Canzio, Canziano and Canzianilla,
and their tutor Proto killed in 304 at the current San Canzian d'Isonzo.
The church is also linked to the cult of San Massimo di Cittanova of
which it preserves the remains.
Legend has it that the church is the work of the first refugees from
Aquileia who fled here due to the barbarian invasions. The undocumented
tradition places the foundation in 864, it was certainly destroyed by a
fire in 1105, and immediately rebuilt to be completely renovated in
1330. It was consecrated on May 20, 1351 by the bishop of Jesolo Marco
Bianco.
From 1200 to 1451 it was subject to the jurisdiction of
the Patriarch of Grado.
Another renovation was ordered in the
16th century, creating the current internal structure. At the beginning
of the 18th century the façade was completed based on a design by
Antonio Gaspari thanks to the bequest of 2000 ducats by the parishioner
Michele Tommasi, to whom the bust above the entrance door is dedicated.
After the middle of the same century Giorgio Massari finished the
restructuring of the interior by radically modifying the natural
lighting system with the raising of the nave and the tiburium over the
main chapel so as to be able to open numerous windows.
The church
is located between the parish of Santi Apostoli and that of Santi
Giovanni e Paolo and was an important point of arrival for the gondolas
coming from Murano. Later, due to various road redevelopment works,
including the birth of the Strada Nova, it found itself exiled to an
area with little traffic.
The interior takes up the basilica layout with three naves punctuated
by six light Corinthian columns. The presbytery is flanked by two minor
chapels and four other altars are distributed along the side walls.
Above the basic structure of the sixteenth-century reconstruction,
with a Tuscan-like appearance and still intact, rise the
eighteenth-century interventions (1760-1763) by Massari; respectful of
the pre-existing structure and aimed above all at regenerating the
natural lighting of the church. He raised the central nave, just as much
as Gaspari's facade allowed, and covered it with a lowered vault divided
into cross vaults to house eight side windows in correspondence with the
existing arches. Furthermore, Massari raised a lantern with windows
above the main chapel and opened the oculus, slightly ovate, above the
triumphal arch. By infilling the oculus on the façade, he obtained an
orientation of the light mainly coming from the presbytery and from
above[6]. The two pulpits, on either side of the presbytery, were later
the work of Massari's pupil and assistant, Bernardino Maccaruzzi. Still
to the same we owe the fastigiatura above the seventeenth-century
structure of the high altar.
Above the entrance portal, inside
the large choir loft designed by Giorgio Massari, there is an
eighteenth-century organ. The doors with the figures of San Canciano and
San Massimo are the work of Giovanni Contarini.
On the first and
second altars on the right side are the paintings of the Madonna del
Carmine and the Madonna Addolorata with the Sacred Heart of Jesus by
Bartolomeo Litterini.
On the two altars on the left wall are the
paintings of the Immaculate Conception by Litterini and the Assumption
by Giuseppe Angeli.
In the presbytery the altarpiece of the main
altar, Saints Canziano and Massimo with the Eternal Father in Glory, is
improbably considered a work by Zoppo dal Vaso[8], the two canvases on
the sides, The Probatic Pool and The Multiplication of the Loaves and
Fishes, they are by Domenico Zanchi while the canvas on the ceiling,
moved after the reconstruction above the luminous lantern, the
Glorification of San Massimo, is the work of Giovanni Segala.
The
chapel on the right, formerly of the Widmann family, contains the
remains of San Massimo inside an elaborate Baroque altar with sculptures
by Clemente Molli. Just outside the chapel, on the right wall of the
church, there is a Pietà, a modern canvas by Ernani Costantini (1951).
The chapel on the left, formerly of the Rinaldi family, has on the
altar the altarpiece of San Filippo kneeling at the feet of the Most
Holy Virgin, by Nicolas Régnier, and on the side walls the two
seventeenth-century busts depicting Antonio and Sebastiano Rinaldi.
Next to the chapel, above the entrance portal to the sacristy, are
the bust of the parish priest Giovanni Maria Grattaruol (1728) and the
neoclassical cenotaph dedicated to Angelo Comello (1814) by Antonio
Bosa. Inside the sacristy there are the paintings of San Romualdo,
attributed to Jacopo Marieschi, the Madonna with Child and Saints
Canciano and Massimo, attributed to Andrea Celesti, and the Via Crucis,
a modern work by Ernani Costantini.