The fondamenta (a canalside walkway) that skirts the rio (a Venetian canal) behind the Scuola Grande di San Marco (a Venetian confraternity) is one of the most intense waterfronts in Venice: on one side the great complex of the former Mendicanti hospital — today the Ospedale Civile, where Venetians have been born and cared for for two centuries — on the other, surprisingly, two squeri, the boatyards where gondolas are still built and repaired, with the scent of wood and pitch reaching as far as the bridge.