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(see Accademia Galleries).

From the best-selling mystery series featuring detective Guido Brunetti.

Calle degli Albanesi near Piazza San Marco is named in honour of this large 15th-century community.

Leading literary figures and patrons of the arts have paid long-term visits since the 19th century.

Vivaldi (1678–1741) was both an accomplished musician and an influential composer. Of his 500 concertos, The Four Seasons is the best known, though 10 were transcribed by J.S. Bach. Vivaldi spent extended periods teaching music at the Pietà home for girls (see Vivaldi Concerts).

Fleeing Turkish invasion, in 1717 the close-knit religious group was granted an island by the Republic (see San Lazzaro degli Armeni).

Aptly named after the Arab word darsina’a (house of industry), Venice’s formidable Arsenale shipyards at one time employed an army of 16,000 to produce the fleets that sailed the Mediterranean, spreading the influence of the Republic through trade deals and naval superiority. Justifiably proud of its innovative assembly-line system, the Arsenale could construct a galley in a matter of hours, notably in 1574 while the French king Henry III was enjoying a banquet. Ringed by walls and towers bearing the winged lion, some of its ancient docks and workshops are now being adapted as exhibition and performance venues (see Arsenale). The row of stone lions which are guarding the entrance hail from various Greek islands looted by Venetian commanders.

Popularly referred to as “il Santo”, Padua’s revered site of pilgrimage was built in the 13th century to safeguard the mortal remains of St Anthony, a Franciscan monk and miracle worker from Portugal. Worshippers visit his gleaming tomb, encircled by burning candles, but his tongue is guarded in an intricate reliquary in the Treasury, recently recovered after being stolen. In architectural terms the basilica blends Romanesque, Gothic, Islamic and Byzantine elements with elegant arched loggias, minarets and domes, and is a treasure trove of art works by Sansovino, Tiepolo and Titian (see Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)).

The original lectern where Galileo Galilei held his lessons between 1592 and 1610 can be seen on the guided tour of Padua’s historic university, founded in 1222 and second only to Bologna as Italy’s oldest. The institution boasts the world’s first anatomy theatre (1594) where dissections had to be carried out in great secrecy as the church forbade such practices. Other illustrious scholars of the university have included astronomer Copernicus (1473–1543), Gabriel Fallopius (1523–62), who discovered the function of the Fallopian tubes, and Elena Lucrezia Corner Piscopia, the world’s first woman graduate (see Elena Lucrezia Corner Piscopia).

Extended sojourns here were mandatory for British upper classes during the 19th-century Grand Tour.