Scuola Grande and Fondamenta della Misericordia

In front of you rises a mass of bare brick that hardly looks Venetian at all. This is the Scuola Nuova della Misericordia, and there is a reason it looks unfinished. In Venice a scuola was not a school but a lay confraternity whose members prayed together, helped one another through sickness and poverty, and competed with each other in wealth. The most important were the Scuole Grandi.

1Too big to finish

The Misericordia confraternity began in the early 14th century next to the nearby abbey, in the Gothic building you will see alongside, the Scuola Vecchia. In the late 15th century it wanted larger premises, and in 1531 it chose a design by the Florentine Jacopo Sansovino, the Republic's architect. But wars and money slowed the work: Sansovino died in 1570 without seeing it finished, and Doge Nicolò da Ponte inaugurated it in 1583. The stone facade never arrived.

2From confraternity to court

Napoleon suppressed the confraternities in 1806 and the building passed to the army. In 1914 its great hall became the home court of Reyer, Venice's historic basketball club, which played here until 1991. After a long restoration it reopened in 2016 as an events venue.

At dusk the fondamenta fills with Venetians having an ombra of wine and some cicchetti by the water's edge.

3What to look for

• The bare brick of the Scuola Nuova, still waiting for marble that never came.
• The Gothic Scuola Vecchia, next to the abbey church.
• The fondamenta, the quay built on the houses' foundations.