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After the Frari and the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Santo Stefano is the third largest monastery church in Venice. Built by the Augustinian Hermits in the 13 th century, it was re-structured a century later, and subsequent embellishments made it into one of the finest examples of Venetian Flamboyant Gothic. Passing through Bartolomeo Bon's magnificent marble portal in the 14th-century brick facade, one enters a space divided into central nave and two side aisles by robust columns ending in elegant Gothic arches.

 The "keel" roof is particularly striking; and in the Presbytery there are fine Choirstalls in inlaid wood dating from 1488. The Sacristy contains a veritable museum of work by some of the great names in Venetian Renaissance art. Among those one might mention there are Jacopo Tintoretto's Last Supper, The Washing of the Feet and Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (which all date from around the time of his work in the Scuola di San Rocco - 1575-1580), Paris Bordon's Baptism of Christ (16th century), a polyptych by Bartolomeo Vivarini and a finely-sculpted Head of St. Sebastian by Tullio Lombardo. There are also several other works of 15th-century sculpture by pupils of the Lombardo School.