Beneath the long portico that rings campo San Giacometto on two sides — topped for a stretch by the Fabbriche Vecchie di Rialto — the merchants gathered for their dealings: here was the seat of the circulating credit bank known as the ’Banco Giro’, the institution that, in effect, invented the bank transfer — payments made with a pen on the registers instead of coins counted one by one. At its feet kept watch the Gobbo di Rialto, the statue supporting the staircase, mute witness to deals, sentences and satires: from 1577 the Gobbo ’spoke’ like Rome’s Pasquino, and dialogued with a Venetian Marforio of his own, ’Marocco Popone’ — the little figure carved at the base of the column in the piazzetta, so called from the basket of melons beside it: the first satire published at Rialto was their exchange about a comet that appeared in the sky, ’Hastu visto Marocco che cometa?’ — ’Hast thou seen, Marocco, what a comet?’.