This is the Gobbo di Rialto. Not a looker, but my favorite statue in Venice for its history. Running up his hunchback is a staircase, and the top forms a platform from which Venetian officials used to announce the names of criminals in the 16th century. Petty offenders were stripped in San Marco, made to run through the streets naked over the Ponte Rialto and finally to the Gobbo. If they made it and kissed the Gobbo, they were pardoned for their crimes.
I'd like to know why this system was ever stopped.
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