A two-storey brick house sits in the middle of the square, touching nothing. Venetians long said it was the executioner’s, because no one would live next to him. The likelier reason is the smell of the trade carried on inside.
At a glance
The confraternity of the varoteri — the dressers of vair and other furs — was founded in 1311 and had its seat at the Crociferi in Cannaregio. After a long quarrel with the Jesuits, who had taken over the church there, the guild was put out and moved across the city. In 1725 it built itself this house in the middle of Campo Santa Margherita. The building is still in municipal use today.
What you see
Two low brick storeys, plastered and patched, and a carved Madonna standing in a niche over the door, sheltering the members of the guild beneath her cloak, carried here from the earlier seat. The detail that catches the eye is not the building but the gap around it. Every other house in the campo is part of a terrace; this one has air on all four sides, in a city where nobody wastes ground.
Why it matters
The isolation is the whole story, and Venice told it the way it liked to: this was the house of the boia, the public executioner, kept apart because nobody would share a wall with him. The trade explanation is duller and more likely. Dressing furs meant soaking skins, and the guilds whose work stank were pushed to the edges of the built fabric everywhere in early modern Europe. Both readings are worth knowing, and only one of them is documented.
Practical information
- The building is an office and is not open to visitors; the relief is on the outside and visible at any hour
- Campo Santa Margherita is one of the liveliest squares in the city, busiest in the evening
Getting there
Waterbus to Ca’ Rezzonico, then five minutes north on foot. From the railway station the walk is about twenty minutes.
Sources
- Comune di Venezia, S. Margherita, comune.venezia.it — on the isolated building of 1725 and its use
- Università degli Studi di Padova, research archive: La Scuola dei Varoteri, dai Crociferi a Santa Margherita. Trasformazioni urbane dei luoghi di una istituzione
Editorial text © Cultural Heritage Online, 2026. Video filmed and narrated on site by Andrea Manzo.
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