left: Monument to Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793), Venetian playwright. We passed this often as it is in the Campo San Bartolomeo immediately behind our hotel.

centre: Il Gobbo. This figure sits neglected behind an iron fence in the campo of the Church of San Giacomo di Rialto near the fish market (San Giacomo is the oldest church in Venice: legend has it that the church was consecrated at noon on the 21st March 421).

Il Gobbo, traditionally said to portray a hunchback, was used as a platform for the reading of proclamations. People convicted of petty crimes were made to run naked from the Piazza San Marco to this statue. The ordeal ended when the criminal kissed the statue.

The inscribed date refers to the year the statue was restored. Shakespeare is said to have named the clown Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice after the statue.

right: An angel on a corner of the Ducal Palace.