A drawing of a wide-angle view of the Procuratie Vecchie in Piazza San Marco in Venice. The church of San Geminiano is shown on the left of the drawing, and the Torre dell'Orologio is shown at the right. At the far right is part of San Marco. Many figures are shown engaged in various activities in Piazza San Marco.

The grid perspective of the paving in the Piazza locates the viewpoint under the arcade six bays from the west end of the Procuratie Nuove. Canaletto’s method of constructing the view differs from the two previous drawings in that the north range of the Procuratie Vecchie, with ten bays too many, is not drawn as a simple elevation. While the horizontals remain parallel such that a single-point perspective is maintained, the arches and windows are gradually squeezed together down the east end of the Piazza. This progressive foreshortening is of course observed in reality, but when combined with the uniform height of the building it has the peculiar effect of making the Procuratie seem to curve away from the viewer.

Catalogue entry adapted from Canaletto in Venice, London, 2005