Piazza San Marco:Looking East from the South West Corner

Caffè Florian had been serving coffee under these arches since 1720, and by the 1750s it was a favourite Venetian meeting place. Here we stand just inside the colonnade of the Procuratie Nuove, the long block on the south side of Piazza San Marco. Two men sit talking against a pillar with a small dog at their feet. Beside them a man in a vivid green cloak holds a cup and saucer, and his coffee most likely came from Florian just behind him. The painter took liberties with the building. He enlarged the arch and dropped a pillar so we see the square and the long arcade at once, with the bell tower and the basilica beyond. A pen drawing of this little group and their dog, now in the British Museum, is one of very few figure studies by Canaletto that survive.