San Francesco della Vigna

This slice of the Renaissance can seem a bit lost in its remote square, but it's well worth a look even if Ruskin sniffed at it for being 'base'. Its south flank is skirted by a ghostly campo, with a campanile, a Gritti palace (1525) – long the residence of the Papal Nuncio, the Oratory of the Holy Stigmata – and a lofty 19th-century neoclassical portico.

According to hoary tradition, the first church on this site commemorated the spot where the living St Mark the Evangelist came closest to Venice; while sailing from Aquileia to Egypt, his ship landed here during a storm, where he met an angel foretelling the birth and devotion of his future city.

The church is named after the vines growing here in 1253 (one if not the only recorded instance of Venetian wine making) when the Franciscans built their first medieval chapel on the site. The present church was begun in 1534 to a design by Sansovino who had to adjust his usual decorative leanings to match the austerity of his patrons, the Observant Franciscans. Its foundation stone was laid by Sansovino’s friend, Doge Andrea Gritti.