The Salizzada di San Provolo, leading easterly out of Campo Santi Filippo e Giacomo, runs straight to the elegant Campo San Zaccaria , a spot with a chequered past. The convent attached to the church was notorious for its libidinous goings-on - a state of affairs not so surprising if you bear in mind that many of the nuns were incarcerated here either because they were too strong-willed for their families or because their fathers couldn’t afford a dowry. On one occasion officials sent to place a stop to the nuns’ amorous liaisons were pelted with bricks by the residents, but activity was customarily more discreet: Venice’s upper classes supplied the convent with several of its novices, and the nuns’ parlour became one of the city’s most fashionable salons, as recorded by a Guardi painting in the Ca’ Rezzonico.

There’s a gory side to the area’s history as well. In 864 Doge Pietro Tradonico was murdered in the campo as he returned from vespers, and in 1172 Doge Vitale Michiel II , having not only blundered in peace negotiations with the Byzantine empire but also brought the plague back with him from Constantinople, was murdered as he fled for the sanctuary of San Zaccaria. Michiel’s assassins disappeared into Calle delle Rasse, between the Palazzo Ducale and San Zaccaria, and it was later decreed that only wooden buildings should be built there, to make it easier to flatten the hideout of any future doge-assassin. The decree wasn’t contravened until 1948, with the construction of the annexe of the Danieli hotel.