Discover Campo Bandiera e Moro Square

San Giovanni in Bragora gives the square its shape. The present church was rebuilt in the 1470s on foundations reaching back to the 8th century, and its facade is brick Venetian Gothic of the plainest kind -- a tripartite front matching the three aisles behind it, a modest rose window, and almost no stone dressing. It is the working parish version of a style usually met in its expensive form.

Inside, the interest is early Renaissance painting rather than structure: Cima da Conegliano's Baptism of Christ of 1492-95 still stands over the high altar it was painted for, which is a rarer thing in Venice than the painting itself.

The church also holds the baptismal record of Antonio Vivaldi, baptised here in 1678 -- his family's parish church, and the font is still in the building.

Around the square, the 14th-century Gothic Palazzo Morosini and Palazzo Soderini face the church. The wellhead at the centre is Istrian stone, its rim carved with arches and ship motifs and lions at the corners, and it is the piece most people walk past without registering.