Peerless parish churches

There are over 200 churches in Venice and the surrounding islands, and many of them contain priceless artworks and artefacts. Sixteen of them are part of the Chorus Association, which uses the revenue from the Chorus Pass to finance preservation and restoration work. The pass is valid for a year and gives access to all sixteen churches for the €12 price. Venice.nu suggests a self-guided walking tour through Venice’s six neighbourhoods, visiting 10 of the city’s most interesting churches. They include the formery nunnery of San Zaccaria, which is “filled with masterpieces by Titian, Tintoretto and Van Dyck and has a famous altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini,” and the exquisite Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli, which was built by the Lombardo family in 1480s and wrapped in polychrome marbles.

If you’re a fan of Tintoretto, seek out the Chiesa della Madonna del Orto. “The large, airy church is fifteenth-century Gothic with a fine, flamboyant entrance door,” says Keith Christiansen at City Secrets. “Tintoretto is buried in the apse, which is in all respects a monument to his ambitions and achievement.” Then there’s the “modest structure of the parish church of San Giovanni in Bragora in Castello,” which reflects its unpretentious neighbourhood. “Yet on the church’s high altar is one of the loveliest examples of an early Renaissance Venetian altar painting -- a depiction of Christ’s baptism, where the limpid waters and green hills bring the holy land to the foothills of the Dolomites,” writes Susan Steer in the The Telegraph. Finally, don’t miss the extraordinary multi-coloured marble inside the Gesuati in Cannaregio, “where it’s hard to tell that the ‘curtain’ draped over the pulpit is in fact marble,” or the church of San Sebastiano, in Dorsoduro, with its floor-to-ceiling masterpieces by Paolo Veronese, who is also buried here.