The Grand Canal from Campo della Carità

Canaletto set up this view in the Campo della Carità, a square right on the Grand Canal, and the spot has a strange afterlife. Beside it stood the church and former convent of Santa Maria della Carità, and those are the very buildings that today house the Gallerie dell'Accademia, where this painting now hangs. He was working on the doorstep of its future home. The square also lost something dramatic around these years. A tall bell tower rose on the church's canal side until the morning of March 27, 1744, when it toppled straight into the Grand Canal, crushing two houses and throwing up a wave big enough to fling nearby gondolas onto the pavement. It was never rebuilt. What Canaletto sets down instead is the ordinary business of the water, the boats and the light on a canal he drew so often that his neat, rhythmic way of ruling its ripples became a signature of his hand.