Venice is incredibly rich in artworks and architectural details and, through his sketches, Leighton’s leads us on a ‘grand tour’ of some of the most popular and beautiful features of the city: for example, the Palazzo Rezzonico and the cloisters of San Greogorio in oil sketches or a Byzantine well-head in a court yard off Salizzada Samuele (private collection) and a view of Santa Maria della Salute (at Leighton House Museum, reference number (LHO/D/0921), probably from the Accademia bridge, in pencil sketches. He visited the Accademia itself often, to sketch from the Old Masters (see drawings at Leighton House Museum, reference numbers LHO/D/0930 and LHO/D/0931).
It also appears that Venice gave Leighton the chance to focus on drawing exterior views. Indeed, the city exudes an architecture that allows one to live an indoor life outdoors. This comes from the necessity of building on water
An intensive period of building took place in Venice in the 11th century as it was developing as a main centre of trade with distant countries. Houses had to be built with courtyards facing the canals, since these were the main communication networks. These functional areas became the main workplaces for the trade, the loading, unloading and storage of goods which led to the idea of including them in the living space.
In particular the palaces built along the Grand Canal were constructed around these working courtyards, with an atrium that would link the water-door, the land-door, and warehouses. A staircase would give direct access to a central room on the first floor, or piano nobile, which negated the need for the inhabitants, guests, or trade partners to enter the house by the servant's floor below. Residential accommodation was accessed off from this central room. The wall that delimited the building from the canal was built essentially as a façade because it didn’t have a real structural function.
Consequently these walls often became the showcases for the buildings. They were often built with recurring features such as a porch and water-door on the ground floor and a continuous balcony on the first floor. Large windows that were sometimes multiple heights were popular, decorative columns, elaborate cornices, marble decoration and frescoes were also common. It is surrounded by this architecture that Leighton, for example, writes to his father in 1864 from “a little mezzanino on the Grand Canal…”.