Must seePhoto by Didier Descouens on Wikimedia Commons
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo
Venice's largest church, where twenty five doges and the Bellini brothers lie buried.
You're standing in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, facing the largest church in Venice. Locals call it San Zanipolo. The Dominicans built it to preach to big congregations, and its brick bulk still feels more like a hall than a chapel. Look up at the dome: it rises 55 meters over a nave that runs 102 meters, and the walls are rose colored brick with almost no ornament outside.
Inside, the walls read like a roll call of dead doges. Twenty five of them are buried here, more than anywhere else in the city. From the fifteenth century on, every doge's funeral was held under this roof. Walk past the monument to Andrea Vendramin, then find the tomb of Marcantonio Bragadin, the captain who defended Famagusta in Cyprus until he was captured and flayed alive.
His tomb holds only his skin. Gentile and Giovanni Bellini rest here too, the two brothers who taught Venetian painting to glow. Give yourself twenty minutes inside. The hospital next door was once the Dominican convent, and the Scuola Grande di San Marco is the building with the marble lions and the carved facade on your right.
