Scuola Grande di San Marco

This guide to the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice opens with a slave sentenced to blinding and mutilation for defying his master to pray at Saint Mark's tomb, and the miracle the confraternity believed saved him. It traces how that scene made the career of a young, overlooked painter named Tintoretto, and follows the building's later fate after Napoleon dissolved the brotherhood and French soldiers seized its treasures. Look for Tullio Lombardo's carved reliefs flanking the door before you learn what the building became next.