Chiesa di San Stae

An aficionado of Venetian light, English painter William Turner loved painting the sun-washed Palladian exterior of this church, with its facade dotted by statues of angels and cardinal virtues. You can see what a painter obsessed with light effects might admire in this church: for all its gleaming white classical grandeur, it retains a languid seaside air, with early-morning lagoon mists that collect mystically around its base. The church was founded in 966 but finished in 1709, and though the interiors are surprisingly spare for a baroque edifice, there are a couple of notable works: Giambattista Tiepolo’s The Martyrdom of St Bartholomew and Sebastiano Ricci’s The Liberation of St Peter.