In the campo of San Giacomo, in front of the oldest church in Venice, a naked, crouching man bears on his back a little flight of steps: it is the Gobbo di Rialto (the Hunchback of Rialto), sculpted by Pietro da Salò in 1541. Together with the red granite column trunk beside it, the Colonna del Bando, said by tradition to have arrived from Acre as war booty, it formed a podium.