A drawing of a view from the Bacino. From left to right the following structures are visible: the Fontegheto della Farina, the Granai, the Zecca, the east facade of the Libreria, the columns of San Teodoro and San Marco, the entrance to the Piazetta, the south facade of the Palazzo Ducale, and the Ponte della Paglia. In the foreground boats are depicted on the canal, or moored at the Molo.

The view is taken from a little way off the Riva degli Schiavoni. Canaletto has as usual narrowed the façade of the Palazzo Ducale, to prevent it dominating the composition. In the right foreground, across the Rio di Palazzo, is the fourteenth-century Ponte della Paglia - the name supposedly records the straw that was unloaded here for the stables of the Palazzo Ducale and for the prisons.

Canaletto eliminated the Campanile, the bell-storey of which should protrude over the Palazzo Ducale, and widened the Piazzetta to show more of the Libreria, moving the column of the lion away from the Palazzo. Beyond the Zecca, the Granai are rather perfunctorily indicated, seeming too small in relation to the buildings of the Fontegheto della Farina in the distance. The basic outlines of the composition were recorded in the Sketchbook.

Catalogue entry adapted from Canaletto in Venice, London, 2005