Santi Giovanni e Paolo Site Features

The ducal tombs

Twenty-five doges are buried here, and their monuments read as a chronology of Venetian taste: Gothic canopied tombs of the 14th century along the west end, then Renaissance wall monuments by the Lombardo family, then the vast Baroque compositions of the 17th century. The Mocenigo and Vendramin tombs are the ones usually singled out.

The Rosary Chapel

Built to commemorate the victory at Lepanto in 1571, the chapel burned in 1867, destroying works by Titian and Tintoretto. It was rebuilt over decades and fitted with ceiling canvases by Veronese moved here from elsewhere -- so what visitors see is a reconstruction furnished with rescued work rather than an intact interior.

The Colleoni monument

Andrea del Verrocchio's bronze of the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, cast after the sculptor's death and unveiled in 1496, stands in the campo outside. Colleoni left his fortune to Venice on condition that a monument be raised to him in front of San Marco; the Republic took the money and put it here instead, in front of the Scuola Grande di San Marco.