Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore

Begun in 1565 and completed in 1610, this dazzling, rosy confabulation of red brick and gleaming marble, a Benedictine Abbey, is the work of Andrea Palladio, and owes more to Roman temples than to the lavish Baroque tropes of his contemporaries. Inside is a generously proportioned nave, with high windows distributing filtered sunshine. Two of Tintoretto's masterworks flank the altar, and a lift whisks visitors up the 60m-high bell tower, for astounding views over Venice and San Marco, and back across the island gardens and lagoon.