The square name is derived from Nicolò da Tolentino, but the appellative is linked to religious who settled here after the S. Cajetan of Thiene in the mid sixteenth century, fugitives from the sack of Rome by Charles V.
The church and the priest were, respectively and theater actors of a fraud perpetrated in the late eighteenth century when a faithful, named Romano, who daily prayed in the chapel of St. Gaetano inside the church, told the priests he knew a secret method to clean silver perfectly. He was given the silverware and brought it back to the church actually very bright. Only later the priest discovered, despite themselves, that it had been replaced by false objects, however the crook was far gone from Venice.

Shoulders to the church you can see the facades of two buildings, Palazzo Condulmer and Palazzo Foresti, overlooking the same river as the square, sites respectively the consulates of Austria and Germany and the command of city police.