Grand Canal: San Geremia and the Entrance to the Cannaregio

This view of San Geremia and the entrance to the Cannaregio Canal from around 1733, now in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, captures the main inland approach to Venice from the north — the route taken by travelers arriving by road from Mestre and Padua before crossing the lagoon. The Cannaregio entrance, marked by the Palazzo Labia on one corner and the church of San Geremia on the other, was the functional rather than ceremonial gateway to Venice, the approach for merchants and goods traffic rather than the sea-facing Molo used for state arrivals. Canaletto's meticulous rendering of the Palazzo Labia — a massive late Baroque palace still incomplete at this date — documents it before the Tiepolo frescoes that would later make it famous were installed in its interior. The Barnes Foundation, established by Albert C. Barnes in Merion, Pennsylvania, and moved to its new Philadelphia home in 2012, holds this as part of a remarkable collection that juxtaposes Post-Impressionist paintings with African sculpture, metalwork, and old masters in an idiosyncratic installation that reflected Barnes's educational philosophy of looking across cultures simultaneously.

The canal junction creates a complex spatial arrangement that Canaletto navigates with characteristic precision. The converging waterways and flanking palazzi produce strong perspective lines that draw the eye into the composition.