San Giacomo dell'Orio

Look up when you step into San Giacomo dell'Orio, a parish church in the Santa Croce district of Venice. The wooden ceiling of the nave is shaped like the inside of an upturned ship's hull, the kind Venetians call a keel ceiling, and this one dates from the early 1400s. The church is far older. It goes back to the 9th century and was rebuilt in 1225, and from that rebuilding comes a column of polished green marble with an Ionic capital, Byzantine work set into the new church.

On the high altar is a painting of 1546 by Lorenzo Lotto, the Venetian-born painter who spent much of his career in Bergamo and the Marche, made in his last years in Venice before he left for good. The Virgin and Child sit on a high throne in front of a green cloth, with four saints around them, James, the church's patron, the apostle Andrew, and Cosmas and Damian, the twin physician saints. The sacristies add more Venetian painting, with canvases by the prolific Palma il Giovane and a panelled ceiling painted by Paolo Veronese.