Campo delle Beccarie, this is one of the many parts of the Rialto market, the economic force of the Venetian Republic, a little like one might think of Wall Street in New York today; it was the area where butchers came to collect, cut and sell their meat. ‘Becher’ is in fact Venetian for butcher, and they would set up their stands here in the campo, next to the long building lined with marble columns which was the famous fish market, certainly bigger and busier than the theirs would have been. That said, the Gallinari, who held the monopoly on chicken meat in the city, were highly respected and protected by the state as they provided crucial cheap nourishment to the lower classes, which in turn meant political stability. As everywhere in the Rialto, this place would have been very noisy, upbeat and chaotic, with the sound of haggling customers and sellers drowning out everything else.