Venice’s most commercial street has a name that is a contract: ruga, in the old dialect, is the street of the shops, and the orefici — the ’oresi’ (goldsmiths) — were so much the masters here that in 1331 the Maggior Consiglio (the Great Council) obliged them to work and sell gold only on the island of Rialto, where it was also easier to keep the fires of their crucibles under control.