Chiesa di San Polo

Most travellers speed past San Polo without realising it’s there, because the 9th-century Byzantine church kept a low profile over the centuries while housing cropped up around it. With a high ship’s-keel ceiling and14th- to 15th-century stained glass windows, San Polo is surprisingly airy inside, if a little dark – and the same is true of the art. Tintoretto’s Last Supper is rife with tension, as apostles react with outrage, hurt and anger at Jesus’ news that one of them will betray him. In the sacristy, Giandominico Tiepolo (son of baroque ceiling maestro Giambattista) shows dark sides of humanity in his Stations of the Cross: jeering onlookers torment Jesus, his blood-stained rags a perverse contrast with their baroque finery. Literally and figuratively, Tiepolo lays it on thick, so that when a lushly painted Jesus leaps from his tomb on the gold ceiling, it’s the ultimate comeuppance.