The church of San Canciano or San Canziano is a small church in the sestiere or neighborhood of Cannaregio

Cannaregio

Cannaregio is the northernmost of the six historic sestieri of Venice. It is the second largest sestiere by land area and the largest by population, with 13,169 people as of 2007....

 in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

.

The church was supposedly founded in the year 864 when citizens from the mainland town of Aquileia

Aquileia

Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...

 fled to the lagoon islands of Venice to avoid the barabarian hordes. It was one of the churches under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Grado

Grado, Italy

Grado is a town and comune in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located on a peninsula of the Adriatic Sea between Venice and Trieste....

 who lived in Venice. It is dedicated to the two brothers and a sister who were martyred for their faith at Aquileia. The church at the site was renovated in 1330, consecrated in 1351, and restored in 1550, and again finally reshaped in the early 18th century to a design by Antonio Gaspari. The facade was rerected in 1706 using a bequest from Michele Tommasi. The Campanile dates to 1532. The nave ceiling was raised during the rebuilding in the mid-18th century using designs of Giorgio Massari

Giorgio Massari

Giorgio Massari was a prominent late-Baroque Venetian architect. Among his masterpieces are the Chiesa dei Gesuati and the Palazzo Grassi-Stucky...

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The four side altars dedicated to the Madonna have canvases by Giuseppe Angeli

Giuseppe Angeli

Giuseppe Angeli was an Italian painter of the late-baroque, active mainly in Venice. He is known for two canvases in the church of San Stae and for a series of frescoes at the Villa Widmann-Foscari near Padua....

 and Bartolomeo Letterini

Bartolomeo Letterini

Bartolomeo Letterini was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was born at Venice and instructed by his father, Agostino Letterini. He was an imitator of Titian.-References:...

. The rich sculptural and stucco decoration was contributed by the Widmann family. Clemente Moli sculpted the statue of San Maximus, first bishop of Cittannova in Istria

Istria

Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...

. The chancel altapiece depicts The Glory of the martyred Saints Canzio, Canziano, and Canzianilla attributed to Paolo Zoppo

Paolo Zoppo

Paolo Zoppo was an Italian painter of the Renaissance period, mainly active in Brescia.He died suddenly in the town of Desenzano. He is known to have depicted in paint the sack of Brescia in 1512 by Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours....

.It is flanked by a painting of the Probatic Pond and Multiplcation of the loaves by Domenico Zanchi.

The chapel on the left dedicated to St Venerando contains an altarlpiece of the Madonna and St. Filippo Neri by Nicola Ranieri. The Altar of the Immaculate Virgin, second to left, was financed by Flaminio Corner

Corner

A corner is the place where two lines meet at an angle, and a concave corner of intersecting walls is generally thought to be the least beneficial position to be in a life-or-death situation. From this notion was born the verb to corner, which is used to mean "to back into a corner" and usually...

in 1735.