The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

the canal grande
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The Right Bank
Ca’ Pésaro
Having passed the green-domed church of San Simeone Piccolo, the end of
the elongated campo of San Simeone Profeta and a procession of nondescript
buildings, you come to the Fondaco dei Turchi (opposite San Marcuola). A
private house from the early thirteenth century until 1621 (including spells
when it was used as a guesthouse for VIPs), the building was then turned over
to the Turkish traders in the city, who stayed here until 1838. By the 1850s
it was in such a terrible state that a campaign for its restoration was started,
with Ruskin at the helm; the city undertook the repair, but the result was
judged nearly as bad an eyesore as the ruin had been, and has had few admirers
since. There’s hardly an original brick left in the building, but whatever the
shortcomings of the work, the building’s towers and long water-level arcade
give a reasonably precise, if schematic, picture of what a Veneto-Byzantine
palace would have looked like. One of the sarcophagi underneath the portico
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