Overlooking the rio (a Venetian canal) that gives it its name, behind the Scuola Grande di San Marco, the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti ideally closes seven centuries of Venetian care: from the first shelter in Dorsoduro, the corte ai Santi Gervasio e Protasio where in 1225 the lepers were gathered — leprosy, brought by ships returning from Syria, was called ’mal di San Lazzaro’ — to the island-lazaretto of 1262, down to the hospice created here in 1500 after the land reclamation for San Zanipolo.