ABSTRACT
Serving as an excellent case study for the exploration of these questions is the Civic Hospital in Venice between the fall of the Republic in 1797 and the present day. The area in which the Civic Hospital is located includes most of the insula of San Zanipolo, located on the north side of the city facing the lagoon. Apart from the urban history of the entire compound, the Civic Hospital also encompasses a number of histories of much smaller fragments. The importance of visualization lies in its capacity to model the history of an institution as an on-going process, one that entails not only the production of actual buildings but also designs that were never constructed. The history of the Civic Hospital of Venice spans several centuries and includes buildings no longer standing and projects that never materialized for economic or political reasons, as unanticipated events forced the architects to interrupt or postpone construction.
