San Giovanni Crisostomo

This handsome little coral-coloured Renaissance church (sometimes spelled Grisostomo) is the last work of Mauro Codussi (finished in 1504), following the lines of his famous San Michele. In form it is a square with a compact Greek cross inscribed within, perhaps as a nod to its namesake, the ‘golden-mouthed’ bishop of Constantinople; even the plaster has a red-gold tint, thanks to the addition of brick dust. On one of Venice's main thoroughfares, it also one of the city's busiest churches, a favourite of the faithful.

Harmoniously proportioned and well articulated inside, with its vaulting and domes, San Giovanni contains its equal in art: on the right, the very last work of another great Venetian, Giovanni Bellini’s SS Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse (1513, painted at the age of 82) and, on the high altar, Sebastiano del Piombo’s Seven Saints (1508–11), one of his greatest works too; some art historians have detected the helping brush of his teacher, the elusive Giorgione, especially in the figures of St John the Baptist and St Liberale.