Chiesa dei Gesuati

If you’re not yet sold on baroque art, just duck inside Giorgio Massari’s 1735 high baroque church and look up. On ceiling panels completed in 1737–39, Tiepolo tells stories in the life of St Dominic in trompe l’œil skies with such brilliantly sunny colour, you may momentarily wonder if you’re wearing enough sunscreen. Fellow Venetian virtuoso of luminosity Sebastiano Ricci painted the crystalline, 1730–33 Saints Peter and Thomas with Pope Pius V on the right side of the nave – quite a contrast to Tintoretto’s adjacent 1565 Crucifixion, with mere hints of deep red and green amid the gathering gloom.

If you find the side door to the cloisters open, you might be able to peek into the little-visited Chiesa di Santa Maria della Visitazione. Better known as Chiesa diSanta Mariadegli Artigianelli for its role as the spiritual home to Venice’s artisans, the otherwise modest church boasts a fine 15th-century chessboard ceiling embedded with scenes of the Visitation. The religious order operates a cultural centre where you might catch the occasional show dedicated to Burano lace or other local crafts, plus a religious guesthouse.