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A writhing 14th-century dragon symbolizing the martyrdom of the saint enlivens the foot of the bell tower of the former church. It has been restored by the university as the Auditorium Santa Margherita.

This beautiful palace is virtually unchanged since the 1300s and instantly distinguishable by its deep overhanging eaves. A striking Byzantine-style lunette, bearing an inset with the family crest, tops the entrance portal.

Glorious rooms decorated with Tiepolo’s masterpieces are highlights of this con-fraternity. The upstairs ceiling shows St Simeon Stock Receiving the Scapular from the Virgin .

An unusual series of medieval-style projections from a first-floor dwelling, partly held up by brick columns, is one of the features of this busy thoroughfare leading to Piazzale Roma and the bus terminal. The street is named after a long-gone bakery (forno ).

A splendid bas-relief of the Virgin sheltering a group of tradesmen in adoration adorns the former tanners’ guild dating from 1725. Because of its isolated position, it was once mistakenly thought to be the house of the city’s executioner.

A charming covered passageway leads through to this minor courtyard where curious low bricked-in arches indicate the former site of a 1700s flour store. The name fondaco or store derived from the Arabic fonduq .

This richly adorned church happily survived Napoleon’s suppression of the Carmelite order of monks in the adjoining monastery. Many of its 13th-century features are intact, such as the sculpted entrance porch.

Research has proved that Shakespeare’s Othello was based on Cristoforo Moro, son of a noble family sent to govern the island of Cyprus from 1508. This house at No. 2615 is his former home.

Excavated in 1932–3 to form a short cut from Piazzale Roma to the Grand Canal, the canal has been closed to vaporetti since the 1990s, due to building damage.

These timber roof platforms were common in Venetian palaces and used by the ladies of the house for bleaching their hair, which they exposed to the sun through a crownless wide-brimmed hat. They are now used for washing and drying clothes, and partying on balmy summer evenings.