Ospedaletto

Baldassare Longhena was having a bad day when he designed this nervous wreck of a Baroque façade near SS. Giovanni e Paolo; the cumulative effect of all the strong men, lions and giant telamones hovers somewhere between a circus poster and low-calorie nightmare–a fair reflection of the low ebb of everyday life in the declining 1670s.

Ruskin found it 'the most monstrous' façade in Venice. There's a bust of the man who paid for its completion, merchant and haberdasher Bartolomeo Cagnoni, front and centre, but like several other churches in Venice, around him there's a decided lack of Christian imagery.