Cattedrale di San Venanzio

San Venanzio in Fabriano brings medieval painting and surviving Gothic architecture into a largely seventeenth-century church. Its broad interior contrasts with the older apse, cloister and chapel of San Lorenzo.

Why it matters

The cathedral preserves several phases of the city's religious and artistic history. Allegretto Nuzi's frescoes and Orazio Gentileschi's Crucifixion give particular depth to the relationship between the medieval and Baroque building.

What to notice

The single nave is flanked by side chapels and enriched with stucco decoration. The polygonal apse and cloister retain features of the Gothic complex. In the San Lorenzo chapel, Nuzi's fourteenth-century frescoes recount the saint's life. Gentileschi's Crucifixion adds the intense naturalism of early seventeenth-century painting. Guelfo Bianchini's stained-glass image of San Venanzio introduces a twentieth-century contribution.

Context and history

The church has medieval origins and became the city's baptismal church in 1253. Fourteenth-century enlargement preceded the major reconstruction designed by Muzio Oddi and carried out between 1607 and 1617. It became a cathedral in 1728 and received the title of minor basilica in 1963. These successive changes account for the coexistence of medieval remains and a later monumental interior.