Discover Treviso Cathedral

The exterior is misleading. A broad neoclassical portico of 1836 fronts the building, so from Calmaggiore the cathedral reads as a nineteenth-century civic monument rather than a church with a thousand years behind it.

Inside, seven domes run down the nave and aisles -- an unusual arrangement in the Veneto and the thing that makes the interior memorable, throwing light down in a series of pools rather than through side windows.

The crypt is the oldest and best part. A low forest of small columns with carved capitals supports the sanctuary above, and the change in scale between it and the church overhead is abrupt in a way that repays going down.

The Malchiostro Chapel, off the right aisle, is a self-contained Renaissance room -- frescoes by Pordenone on the walls and vault, Titian's Annunciation on the altar.