The Ponci Pharmacy at Santa Fosca, Venice is well-known among visitors, who seek out its refined atmosphere, which has been faithfully preserved as it was in the past; it is a reminder of times gone by when, under the wise rule of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, all (or nearly all) apothecary shops were elegant and stylish …". This description by Pedrazzini in 1934 was accompanied by six full-page photographs of what he believed to be the most distinguished of the original eighteenth-century pharmacies still in existence.

The pharmacy underwent meticulous restoration a couple of years ago and while it is difficult to do it justice with just two photographs, it shows it is certainly worth a visit. The walls are lined with beautiful walnut furniture, with cupboards below and open shelves above, where eighteenth-century ceramic jars and jugs manufactured in nearby Bassano del Grappa are stored. The intricately carved wooden decorations around the entrance doors include the busts of three figures: an apothecary using a pestle, a chemist with an alembic for distillation and a ‘medicine man’ deep in thought.

The efficacy of the pills of ‘S. Fosca’ or ‘del Pievano’, as they were called, was so well-known that, in 1701, the owner of the pharmacy G. Giacomo Zanichelli applied to register them with the ‘Provveditori della Sanità’ (the Medicines Agency of the day) for “six lire and sixteen soldi an ounce” to put a stop to the continuous imitations and excessive use of his name. On 24 November 1870 this request was granted to the new owner of the pharmacy, Ferdinando Ponci, who added his name to one of the longest-standing drugs, which has been on the market for about three hundred years.