Santi Giovanni e Paolo

If the Frari is the Franciscans' great church in Venice, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, contracted in Venetian dialect to San Zanipolo, is the Dominicans' answer, and the two buildings are the city's greatest Gothic churches. Built in brick over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it is enormous inside, a soaring nave lined with the tombs of some two dozen doges and many of the Republic's leading families, generals and admirals, which is why it is often called the pantheon of Venice. The funerary monuments trace the evolution of Venetian sculpture from Gothic canopies to the grand Renaissance tombs of the Lombardo family of sculptors, whose monument to Doge Pietro Mocenigo, with its warrior figures, is a masterpiece. Among the paintings, look for Giovanni Bellini's polyptych of St Vincent Ferrer, an early work in its original frame, and the Chapel of the Rosary, rebuilt after a fire in the nineteenth century, with ceiling canvases by Paolo Veronese. In the right transept, a great stained-glass window, made on Murano in the fifteenth century from designs associated with the Vivarini family of painters, fills the church with coloured light on sunny days, one of the most important Renaissance windows in Italy. Outside, the campo is one of the finest in Venice. At its centre stands Andrea del Verrocchio's bronze equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the mercenary commander who left the Republic a fortune on condition that his statue stood before San Marco, and the Venetians, with characteristic cunning, placed it in front of the Scuola Grande di San Marco instead. That Scuola, with its trompe-l'oeil marble facade, is now the entrance to the city hospital and is next to the church.

Visiting: the basilica is a working church run by the Dominican friars, open for tourist visits from Monday to Saturday from morning to late afternoon and on Sundays and holy days from midday, with a modest ticket that supports upkeep; it is closed to visitors at certain hours on major feasts. Dress modestly and avoid visiting during Mass. Allow an hour to see the tombs, the Bellini, the Rosary chapel and the window properly. The church's official site lists current visiting hours and ticket details.

The neighbourhood: Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo is a lived-in Castello square, with a bar or two where locals linger, a canal running along one side and the hospital's grand facade along another, and it is one of the best places in the city to sit and watch everyday Venetian life. The Scuola Grande di San Marco has historically opened parts of its rooms, including its library and medical history collections, to visitors; check whether access is currently possible. From the campo, it is a short walk north to the Fondamenta Nove for boats to Murano, Burano and Torcello, or south to Campo Santa Maria Formosa and on to San Marco.

How it fits: San Zanipolo is the perfect stop on a walk from the Rialto to the Fondamenta Nove before an islands trip, or on a Castello day that continues to the Arsenale and the Giardini. Art lovers who have seen the Frari will want to compare the two great Gothic churches; first-timers will find the scale and the doges' tombs a vivid complement to the Doge's Palace. For a cheap and memorable lunch, the lanes toward Campo Santa Maria Formosa and Barbaria de le Tole have neighbourhood osterie. A word on light and timing: the church is huge and can feel dim on grey days, so a sunny late morning shows the stained glass and the marble tombs at their best, while winter afternoons close in early. Binoculars or a phone zoom help with the high tomb sculpture and the upper parts of the window.