Fondaco dei Tedeschi

Stamps are the main commodity traded near the ancient well in the sombre courtyard of this former fondacho (trading house), where Venice’s central post office was installed in 1937. But imagine how this place must have looked during its 13th- to 17th-century heyday as the Wall Street of Venice’s German community, before the creeping damp destroyed the exterior frescoes by Giorgione and Titian – only a few fragments remain in the Ca’ d’Oro. The traders here drove a hard bargain: when Giorgione and Titian showed up to collect their payment of 150 ducats for the work, they were told their work was worth only 130 ducats. Incensed, they insisted on an independent appraisal, which confirmed the original figure – but the artists were told they could take it or leave it.