The city is based on these units and has grown over the centuries via a process of gradual “filling-in”, with the construction of new buildings, starting from the Rivoalto area and extending towards all the other settlements, thus reducing the width of the waterways between the islands and so forming the modern-day canals.
This process of “filling-in” took place over a relatively short period of time, meaning that the architecture is particularly homogeneous, the squares being the only obvious gaps. A similarity in style only stops where the city ends, at the water’s edge.