by Venice has always been a crowded city. Even hundreds of years ago, there were complaints about the noise and bustle. Today, although I love the place, the large number of other visitors can be troublesome. Unless, that is, you know how to escape from your fellow travelers.
Fortunately, even when the queue to enter San Marco snakes into the distance, and there is barely room to move on the main routes from the station to the Rialto and the Piazza, it is not difficult to do so . This is partly because Venice is not only beautiful, but also bigger than you might think. The dense maze of its streets and canals has an amazing capacity to absorb people, which is not surprising since this was one of the largest towns in medieval Europe.
And if you plan your escape carefully, you can, at the same time, find some of the most beautiful works of art in Venice. Here are 10 lesser-visited sights with stunning masterpieces that you can enjoy in peace.
Torcello
If you want to get an idea of what Venice was like when it was just starting out, go to a vaporetto journey across the lagoon to Torcello. A millennium ago, this island was the site of a thriving community. Today, it is notable for a famous restaurant and two ancient churches. One of these, Santa Maria Assunta, has a magnificent 11th-century mosaic of a tall, slender Virgin Mary and her child in a golden dome. It is one of the earliest and most significant Venetian Madonnas. Torcello is served by water bus number 12 from Venice. The cathedral is open daily.
Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni
Ancient confraternities of Venice, or squall, was part club, part mutual aid society, part religious society. The Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni was one of the smallest and in the early 16th century commissioned a series of amazing Harry-Potterish paintings from Vittore Carpaccio, full of dragons, various miracles and a basilisk. Five hundred years later, they are still there.
San Giovanni in Bragora
One of the pleasures of Venice is to find a great picture in the exact location where the artist painted it. The church of San Giovanni in Bragora, 10 minutes’ walk from San Marco, is a world away from the crowds, just such a time capsule. On the high altar is the Baptism of Christ (1492-94) by Cima da Conegliano, featuring a peaceful river and distant landscape, looks much the way it did when Cima completed it.
San Sebastiano
As his nickname suggests, Paolo Caliari – or Veronese – came from Verona. But he made his home and career in Venice. And in the church of San Sebastiano – intentionally or unintentionally – he made a shrine to his own wonderful talent. He had painted almost every surface in the building – altarpieces, side panels, frescoes on the walls and two magnificent ceilings. It is religious art but also a cornucopia of the good things of this world, including rich textiles, ornate architecture and beautiful people.
San Zaccaria
John Ruskin once described Giovanni Bellini Madonna and child with saints and another Bellini a little earlier in the church of the Frari as “the two best paintings in the world”. It is a type of painting called sacred conversation, but meditation would be a better word. Each figure seems lost in his own thoughts, surrounded by Bellini’s personal vision of heaven. At the bottom of the page is an angel playing a viol pensively. You can almost hear it.
Santa Maria Formosa
The central figure of St. Barbara in the Palma Vecchio altarpiece in 1520 here was one of the pictures picked out by the novelist George Eliot when he visited in 1860. Eliot saw her as a feminist role model, a “woman warrior”. “calm, great beauty”. ” and “a mind full of serious conviction”.
The Frari
Titian Assumption of the Virgin It has been one of the artistic stars of Venice ever since it was first unveiled in 1518. This was Titian’s masterpiece. It is on the high altar in one of the city’s great churches and manages to dominate its vast space from the moment you walk through the west door. Wagner was among his many admirers, claiming – amazingly – that the picture inspired him to write a preface death of Meistersinger.
Ca’ Rezzonico
Few people go to the upper floor of the Ca’ Rezzonico (Museum of Venice in the 18th century), where you can see the frescoes from the private villa of Giandomenico Tiepolo. In many of these the scene is filled with clones of the commedia dell’arte character Pulcinella, wearing masks and tall conical hats. It feels like a playful parody of the paintings of gods, angels and angels floating among the clouds that Giandomenico’s father, Giambattista, painted so often. But here these have been replaced by clowns who have a bit of fun.
Scuola Grande di San Rocco
Beginning in 1564 and continuing for twenty years, Tintoretto filled two floors of this building with more than 60 canvases. The result is one of the largest single exhibitions in the world – every picture still where it was intended. Rubens visited and when Velázquez was in town, he also made a beeline for the Scuola. You should as well.
Scuola Grande dei Carmini
This is a perfect combination of architecture, 18th century interiors and art. The main room has a magnificent ceiling painted by Giambattista Tiepolo. The central scene is a vision of the Virgin Mary appearing to Saint Simon Stock: the supplicant saint kneeling and the Madonna swooping down like a low-flying jet, surrounded, as the art historian Michael Levey writes, by “a cloud of angels flying” . It is baroque drama from the air above your head.
Basics
Palazzo Morosini degli Spezieri Hotel (00 39 375 504 9734) has rooms from £140 per night.
Ryanair (ryanair.com), easyJet (easyjet.com), British Airways (ba.com) and Wizz (wizzair.com) fly from regional UK airports to Venice from £34 return.
Martin Gayford’s new book of charge. Venice: City of Pictures, published by Thames & Hudson (RRP £30). Buy now for £25 at books.telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514.
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