At the far end of this calle (a narrow street), sugar was refined in the 18th century. The corte (a small courtyard) took its name from that workshop, and Tassini writes that in 1712 it was run by a certain Francesco Astori. Sugar refining had a long history in Venice: according to Tassini, the first man to set up refineries in the city was a Portuguese, Rodrigo di Marchiano, in 1598.