On the Campo dell’Abbazia, one of the quietest corners of Cannaregio, you recognise it at once: a long Gothic facade of brick and Istrian stone, crowned by a curving gable and a bizarre dark turret. It is the Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia, the first seat of the confraternity of the Battuti, erected here from 1310 on land granted by the Augustinian monks and embellished in the mid-15th century by the Bon workshop.