San Zulian, or San Giuliano, stands on the Mercerie, the main shopping street of Venice. It was originally built in the ninth century and reconstructed several times, probably after a fire in 1105. Jacopo Sansovino designed the facade, which was built from 1553 to 1554 and completed by Alessandro Vittoria in 1570. The church was consecrated in 1580.
The scholar and physician Tommaso Rangone paid for the facade, which has the flattened form of a classical temple. Above the door is a bronze seated portrait of Rangone, holding plants he used to treat syphilis and yellow fever. Reliefs show a map of the world as known at his death, and inscriptions appear in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Inside are works by Girolamo Campagna, Palma the Younger and Paolo Veronese, whose Pietà is here. The organ is by Gaetano Callido, from 1764.
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