On Campo San Cosmo, one of the quietest corners of the Giudecca, the gabled façade of a 16th-century church looks onto a lawn: today there are offices inside, but for three centuries this was the heart of a Benedictine nunnery. Its founder was a stubborn woman, Marina Celsi, already abbess at Murano and Mazzorbo, who fled convents she judged too lax to found one of strict observance.