In the remotest corner of Dorsoduro, where Venice turned into lagoon and salt marsh, San Nicolò dei Mendicoli is one of the city’s oldest and most popular churches: the first building perhaps dates to the 7th century, coeval with the cathedral of Torcello, on an island called Mendigola - unless ’mendicoli’ simply recalls the mendicants, the poor folk of fishermen and porters who lived here: the Nicolotti, the popular faction rival to the Castellani, which elected its own ’doge’ in the church.