Along the Fondamenta Zen (a fondamenta is a canalside street), just past the Ponte dei Gesuiti, stretches the group of palaces that housed one of the most extraordinary seafaring families of the Serenissima: the Zeno, who gave the Venetian patriciate a doge, Renier (1253-1268), the admiral Carlo ’Capitano da mar’ among the victors of the war of Chioggia, and the brothers Nicolò and Antonio, legendary explorers of the northern seas.