San Pantalon

Venetian church in Dorsoduro with one of the world's largest ceiling canvases and a deliberately unfinished façade.

The Chiesa di San Pantaleone Martire, known as San Pantalon in Venetian, stands in the Dorsoduro sestiere and is dedicated to Saint Pantaleon — any connection to the Commedia dell'arte character Pantalone is purely nominal. The interior is dominated by an extraordinary 17th-century ceiling painting on canvas, one of the largest painted canvas surfaces in the world. The exterior was never finished: a planned marble cladding was apparently abandoned for financial reasons. This tension between plain outside and opulent inside is one of the defining traits of Venetian church design.