"In the church of Santo Andrea there are some relics of holy bodies placed in gold and silver vases to honor every collegiate church, ancient gifts from the Patriarchs and especially from Beltrame, who was loving to this Land, besides a chapel has recently been built with great expense of marbles of a beautiful male found on the mountains of Moggio". 

Jacopo Valvason di Maniago, Description of the Homeland of Friuli, 1568

Dedicated to S. Andrea Apostolo, the Cathedral was built starting from 1251 by the feudal lord Glizoio di Mels, probably on a primitive place of worship from the 6th century: traces of a Carolingian-Ottonian church have been found, which in turn overlapped layers of previous pavements. 

A monument among the most important of the medieval citadel, almost completely destroyed by the earthquake of 1976, it was rebuilt with a splendid and complex operation for anastylosis.

Consecrated by the Patriarch of Aquileia Bertrando di Saint Geniès in 1338, it features a Latin cross plan with a single nave and a wide and bright transept on which the arches of the three apsidal presbyteries, flanked by two towers, are projected.

The exterior is articulated by polygonal apses reinforced at the corners by buttresses ending with pyramidal spires and statues.

Of the three portals, the most interesting is the northern one, from 1308, on which the sculptor "maestro Giovanni" worked, the same who worked on the nearby Cathedral of Gemona. His is the Blessing Christ of the northern portal lunette and the Coronation of the Virgin of the southern portal lunette. The lunette of the main portal, depicting the Crucifixion in bas-relief, is an important plastic work of 14th-century Friulian sculpture.

The exterior of the Cathedral is also decorated with other 14th-century statues and reliefs, as well as with six Veneto-Byzantine patere embedded in the forepart of the northern portal.

Inside, important 14th-century frescoes are preserved, such as the large fresco of the Consecration of the Cathedral, a Saint Martin and the poor, both from the school of Vitale da Bologna (1350 c.) and a splendid Saint George and the dragon, of clear Nordic imprint. Above the altar of the central presbytery is placed a large wooden Crucifix from the Friulian school of the first half of the 15th century. 

In the right presbytery, a stunning "Vesperbild" in stone, from the early 1400s, is preserved, a very fine depiction defined as "one of the most noble German works on Italian soil". Above the right side portal is placed a Lamentation over the Dead Christ, in painted and gilded wood, composed of eight statues of very fine workmanship, dated around 1530. The interior is enriched by other works of art, such as the 15th-century frescoes by Friulian craftsmen, along with sculptural works, Renaissance wooden sculptures, and some fine altarpieces.

Info sourced from www.archeocartafvg.it 

Patriarch Bertrando was undoubtedly one of the most important reformers of the church and society of his time. 

This is also affirmed by Angelo Floramo, who recalls how Venzone was at the center of his reform plan; in this context, the greatest painter of that time, Vitale da Bologna, was called to fresco the walls of the Duomo in 1348. And so - comments Floramo - "this fateful year will not only be remembered as that of the Black Death and the earthquake, but will be sung as the Spring of Friulian Gothic".