FT art critic Jackie Wullschläger’s favourite church paintings in Venice

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This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Venice

Venice has some 140 churches, each distinctive, all rewarding. Founded as markers of secular wealth as well as devotion, these buildings contain some of the world’s greatest paintings: an intense pleasure because, irrespective of belief, the experience of seeing sacred art is richer, more full of wonder, in its historical context than in museums. It is probably also more subjective; what follows are very personal suggestions. 

San Marco: Dome of the Ascension, 1175-1200

Blending Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance elements, St Mark’s is for most visitors, as it was for Ruskin, “the most magical and mysterious of churches”. Once inside, you forget the queues and throng in the overwhelming, otherworldly impression of golden hues shimmering everywhere in low flickering light and the embracing warm colours of the painted mosaics. The heart of the vast decorative scheme is the mesmerising figures in the Ascension cupola: the starry circle of Christ pulled to heaven by flying angels, surrounded by Mary, the apostles, the Evangelists in the spandrels. Its Greek artist looped curving lines and spirals into harmonious patterns, creating solemn unity amid astounding detail. Website; Directions

Santi Giovanni e Paolo: ‘Madonna of Peace’, before 1349 

One of Venice’s largest churches offers almost an anthology of grandiose Venetian painting: Bellini, Lotto, Veronese. Striking a different note is the affecting Byzantine icon of the Madonna and child, seized by a Venetian nobleman from Constantinople and donated in 1349. When squabbling 16th-century Dominicans settled their quarrel in its presence, it became known as “Madonna della Pace”. Devotion to this icon, drawing innumerable visitors praying for peace, reached a peak during the wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45. Website; Directions

San Zaccaria: ‘Madonna Enthroned with Child and Saints’, 1505, by Giovanni Bellini

A one euro coin illuminates Bellini’s crisp, tranquil Mary, musician angel and symmetrically arranged saints, and the late Gothic imagination bursts into life. Set in a niche whose carved pillars Bellini imitates in the painting’s columns, the altarpiece works with the architecture to fuse painted and actual worlds. The serenity, luminosity and authority represent a peak of the 74-year-old Bellini’s achievement; glimpses beyond of feathery trees and pale blue sky indicate his response to the landscapes of the young Giorgione. Website; Directions

Santa Maria dei Carmini: ‘Nativity’, 1509, by Cima da Conegliano

Among many churches whose simple facades belie astonishingly ornamental interiors, the Carmini has gilded arches framing a dozen colonnaded bays, with statues in each spandrel, giving an overall impression of depth yet intimacy in each semi-secluded chapel. Perfectly set here is Cima’s calm, refined “Nativity”. Its array of dignified worshippers — Archangel Raphael and little Tobias with his fish, third-century Saint Helena — collapse time; a lyrical landscape, sky fading to ochre, recalls the hills of Cima’s native Conegliano. Website; Directions

Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari: ‘Assumption’, 1518, by Titian

With a tremendous spiralling movement, Titian’s radiant larger-than-life-size Madonna, gaze exalted, arms raised, cloak billowing around her supple young body, rises to heaven’s golden dome surrounded by angels in flight, watched by astonished, wildly gesturing apostles. Venice’s greatest altarpiece was a landmark for its fresh dynamism and glowing colour, combined with architectonic grandeur. Compare Titian’s agitated energy with Bellini’s lovely, static “Madonna and Child” (1488), also in the Frari, and you understand why the “Assunta” caused awestruck consternation in 1518. Titian’s tomb is in the Frari. Website; Directions

Madonna dell’Orto: ‘Presentation of the Virgin’, 1553, by Tintoretto

Tintoretto is buried in Madonna dell’Orto, his parish church, decorated with many of his works. “With a truly divine brush, he forced the inhabitants of earth and heaven to come to life within his paintings” reads his tomb’s inscription. Next to it hangs his depiction of the child Mary atop a huge curving gilded staircase; at its foot a mother points her out to her own daughter, leading us too to look up the steps to the light-drenched holy figure. To the side elderly temple worshippers — the old order — reel in darkness. It is a tender example of Tintoretto imbuing the divine with humanity, and making the human instantly relatable. Website; Directions

San Sebastiano: Narrative cycles by Veronese, 1555-81

From Sebastian twisting defiantly in the “Madonna in Glory” altarpiece and the flame-robed hurtling angel in “The Miracle at the Pool of Bethesda” on the organ shutters, to the horses rearing in one of three paintings on the coffered ceiling that depict scenes from the Book of Esther, Veronese provided almost all the decoration for the stupendously adorned San Sebastiano, the church where he was eventually buried. It’s moving and immersive, like walking into a jewel box of Veronese’s mind. Website; Directions

San Giorgio Maggiore: “The Jews in the Desert” and “Last Supper”, 1592-94, by Tintoretto

Palladio’s classical white marble basilica on San Giorgio Maggiore gleams across the lagoon from San Marco, and if one church is worth taking a boat for, this is it. Unforgettable are Tintoretto’s late, dark, staggeringly bold compositions paired across the altar: the tumultuous “The Jews in the Desert” and a “Last Supper” arranged around a receding diagonal so that the apostles don’t face us but chaotically dispute among themselves in an inn. The haloed figures of Moses and Jesus connect the pictures visually and theologically. Website; Directions

Gesuati: ‘The Institution of the Rosary’, 1737-39, by Giambattista Tiepolo

Tiepolo’s paintings are integral to the glorious stylistic unity of the Zattere’s 18th-century waterfront church. His ceiling frescoes, centred on “The Institution of the Rosary”, are a literal high point: enthroned on clouds with his mother, infant Jesus hands the rosary to soaring angels who pass it to St Dominic, then to crowds below him — and by implication to us on the ground. Diffused brightness, Baroque drama and illusionistic architecture against diaphanous skies that seem to open to heaven show Tiepolo at his most skilful. Directions

Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello: Virgin Hodegetria, 1080-1100

Finally, if time allows, a half-day pilgrimage to an outpost of Byzantium. Torcello island, where the settlement of Venice began, has its oldest church, founded in 639 and rebuilt in 1008. Welcoming you as you pass beneath its gilded dome is a famously beautiful Byzantine mosaic where Mary wrapped in precious gold-fringed robes points to Christ in her arms as future salvation (Hodegetria means “she who shows the way”). Ghostly and magnificent, it at once casts you back to Venetian art’s Byzantine origins and gives a sense of being timeless and out of time — what Yeats in “Sailing to Byzantium” called “the artifice of eternity”. Website; Directions

Do you have a favourite artwork in Venice’s churches? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter

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