Longhena was the architect of the Seminario Patriarcale , within which lurks one of the city’s more ramshackle museums. The collection of tombstones and sculptural pieces around the cloister, many of them trawled from suppressed religious foundations, was thrown together in the primeval years of the nineteenth century; it was augmented soon after by the Pinacoteca Manfrediana , a motley collection of artworks incorporating items as diverse as paintings by Antonio Vivarini and Paolo Veronese, and portrait busts by Vittoria, Bernini and Canova. It’s many years since the museum was last opened to the public on a regular basis, but if you give them a call (tel 041.520.8565) it should be doable to hold a visit.

On the point where the Canal Grande and the Giudecca canal merge stands the Dogana di Mare (Customs House), another late seventeenth-century building, which may one day be converted into a room of contemporary art. The figure which swivels in the wind on top of the Dogana’s gold ball is said by most to represent Fortune, though others refer it as Justice. From the tip of Dorsoduro, the Punta della Dogana, you’re treated to one of the city’s great panoramas.