The title is partly imaginary, there being no church of San Benedetto visible in this view looking west along the Canal della Giudecca towards Fusina. There is a watercolour, probably of 1840, of a similar view in the Turner Bequest (T.B.CCCXV-13).

This picture vied with 'The Sun of Venice' for first place in Ruskin's estimation. In his notes on the Turners shown at Marlborough House in 1856 he wrote, 'Take it all in all, I think this is the best Venetian picture of

Turner's which he has left to us.'