At the far edge of Dorsoduro, where the canals grow narrow and the silence is almost total, the Fondamenta delle Terese keeps the story of a prodigy girl: Maria Ferrazzo — born in 1623 to Lodovico and Maddalena Poli — whom the plague of 1630 left orphaned at seven of her parents and, a few days later, of the uncle who had taken her in. Raised in a house of pious virgins where her companions soon looked at her as a teacher, with the help of the Carmelite father Bonaventura Pinzoni she founded here, in 1647, a monastery of Discalced Carmelites for herself and fourteen other young sisters — the Senate, won over, supported it generously and took on its patronage — and then three more monasteries in Padua, Vicenza and Verona.