The church of Santa Maria Assunta, known to everyone simply as the Gesuiti, is the great Baroque set-piece of northern Cannaregio, finished by the Jesuits in 1729. Its show-stopping interior trick is the marble: grey-green and white inlay worked to imitate damask "drapery", swagged over the pulpit and walls so convincingly that the stone appears to be soft cloth. The floor continues the illusion in patterned marble that looks like a carpet.
The art is first-rate too. Titian's dramatic, night-lit "Martyrdom of St Lawrence" hangs in the first chapel on the left, and there is a Tintoretto "Assumption" in the north transept. The over-the-top decoration divides visitors, but few churches in Venice are as memorable. The quiet Campo dei Gesuiti outside, near the Fondamente Nove, is a good place to wait for the lagoon vaporetti.