San Martino is a Romanesque-style,

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church located in the town of Este in the

province of Padua The province of Padua () is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Padua. Geography It has an area of 2,142 km2, and a total population of 936,492 (2016) making it the most populated provi ...

, region of

Veneto Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...

, Italy.

History

A church at the site is documented since the 11th century, but was likely more ancient. The dedication to St

Martin of Tours Martin of Tours (; 316/3368 November 397) was the third bishop of Tours. He is the patron saint of many communities and organizations across Europe, including France's Third French Republic, Third Republic. A native of Pannonia (present-day Hung ...

is attributed to have occurred during the Lombard era. The Romanesque layout has a 14th-century apse that incorporated what was once a small adjacent church dedicated to St Laurence. The crossing has a round brick dome. The facades is simple with awkward Gothic-style windows. The nave has two flanking aisles. The belltower is peculiar in that it is leaning outward, a trait present since 1400. An inscription near the belltower reports reconstruction of the church in 1293. The major chapel has an 18th-century marble altar with two angel sculptures by

Antonio Bonazza Antonio Bonazza (23 December 1698 – 12 January 1763) was an Italian sculptor of the Rococo. He is considered one the greatest and most original Venetian sculptors of the 18th century; his activity was widespread, and his art distinguished by its ...

. The chapel of San Lorenzo has a 14th-century fresco by a follower of

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...

, depicting a ''Crucifixion with May and St John''. Along the wall of the nave are fragments of a triptych depicting the ''Madonna and Child with St Peter and other saints'' and a ''Crucifixion of St

Margaret of Antioch Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr () in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in Western Christianity, on 30th of July (Julian calendar) by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on Epip ...

''. In the left nave, a polychrome marble altar originally dedicated to St Stephen, once held statues in niches depicting Saints Roch, Stephen, and Sebastian, but now displayed in the Museo Nazionale Atestino. The

predella In art a predella (plural predelle) is the lowest part of an altarpiece, sometimes forming a platform or step, and the painting or sculpture along it, at the bottom of an altarpiece, sometimes with a single much larger main scene above, but oft ...

of the altar has reliefs of events of the life of the three saints: ''Roch captured and led to jail'', ''St Stephen's Martyrdom'' and ''St Sebastian's Martyrdom''. In the 19th century, most of the canvases were removed, including a painting of the ''Martyrdom of St Lawrence'' by a painter of the school of

Tintoretto Jacopo Robusti (late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594), best known as Tintoretto ( ; , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized th ...

, and other paintings by

Antonio Zanchi Antonio Zanchi (; 6 December 1631 – 12 April 1722) was an Italian painter of the Baroque, active mainly in Venice, but his prolific works can also be seen in Padova, Treviso, Rovigo, Verona, Vicenza, Loreto, Brescia, Milano, and Bergamo, a ...

.La patria; geografia dell' Italia: Provincie di Verona, Vicenza, e Padova
by Gustavo Chiesi, Luigi Borsari, Giuseppe Isidoro Arneudo, (1903), main editor: Gustavo Straforello, page 436.

References

{{coord missing, Italy Romanesque architecture in Veneto 13th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Churches in Este, Veneto Buildings and structures completed in 1293 Churches completed in the 1290s