I Gesuiti

Giddily over the top even by rococo standards, this gaudy, glitzy 18th-century Jesuit church is difficult to take in all at once, with a staggering spaceship of a pulpit and undulating marble walls. The church is lavishly decorated with white-and-gold stucco, white-and-green marble floors, and marble flourishes filling in any blank space. Gravity is provided by Titian’s uncharacteristically dark, gloomy Martyrdom of St Lawrence, on the left as you enter the church. Also playing against type here is Tintoretto’s Assumption of the Virgin, in the northern transept. This image is the antithesis of his dark images in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, showing the Virgin on her merry way to heaven, suffused with a rosy glow that nods at Titian and a nimble lightness that leans towards Tiepolo.