The story goes that it was precisely in this place that during an evangelist's stay, after sheltering from a storm, an angel appeared to him announcing the future foundation of Venice, and while taking his leave he said, Pax Tibi, a Latin phrase that means "Peace to you", which becomes the motto of the Serenissima.
The current church, begun by Jacopo Sansovino in 1534, for the Franciscan order, was commissioned by the doge Andrea Gritti, who is also buried there, and is one of the most beautiful Renaissance churches in all of Venice.
It was completed in 1554, ten years later putting Sansovino aside, and calling to complete the construction of the grandiose facade the architect Andrea Palladio, who in the meantime had imposed himself as a concrete alternative, thus creating, on a single floor, the main nave, surmounted by a large tympanum, all made in a classic style. The two huge statues located in the niches of the facade represent Moses on the left and San Paolo on the right.
Among the numerous masterpieces kept in the church are the paintings by Giovanni Bellini with, Sacra Conversazione and the Virgin with the Putto, Saints and Donors, in the fourth chapel on the right we find the Resurrection of Christ of 1560 by Paolo Veronese.
In the counter-façade we find on the right the Madonna and Child, in a 12th century Byzantine relief of, instead on the left a triptych of Saints Jerome, Bernardino of Siena and Ludovico da Tolosa, by Antonio Vivarini.
