A walk with 80 stops, from St Mark's Square to Church of San Bartolomeo.
The stops
- St Mark's Square
It is the only space in Venice called ’Piazza’ - all the others are campi (Venetian squares) - because it wanted to be unique even in name.
- St Mark's Clocktower
In 1493 the Senate of the Serenissima decided that Venice deserved a new clock: the old one, in a niche of the Basilica, did not even have a dial and the hours could only be told by ear, through the strokes of the bell.
- La Vecia del Morter
On 15 June 1310 Venice nearly changed masters.
- Merceria dell'Orologio
The last stretch of the Marzaria — the commercial spine linking Rialto and St Mark’s — is the Merceria dell’Orologio.
- Campo San Zulian
A small campo (square) always full of passers-by, halfway along the Merceria between St Mark’s Square and the Rialto: Campo San Zulian owes its name to the church standing in the middle of it, dividing it from the campiello (small square) of the same name.
- Church of San Giuliano
On the Merceria, a few steps from the Clock Arch, San Giuliano — San Zulian in Venetian — is a church of very ancient foundation: the chronicle of doge Andrea Dandolo places it in 832 — others have it founded around 829 by Giovanni Marturio, who ruled the state during the exile of doge Partecipazio — and the first certain document is of 1061; dedicated to the martyr Julian of the Thebaid, it was the pleban church of the St Mark’s ducal clergy until 1804.
- Merceria San Zulian
The Merceria di San Giuliano—Marzaria San Zulian—is the central stretch between Campo San Zulian (a Venetian square) and the Ponte dei Bareteri: a straight street with no side streets and an unbroken line of shop windows.
- Casino Venier
At number 4939 of the Mercerie, behind the Ponte dei Baretteri, an anonymous little door above the Sotoportico delle Acque hides one of the best-preserved jewels of 18th-century Venice: the Casino Venier, the private ridotto of the procurator Federico Venier, entrusted to his wife Elena Priuli, a cultivated and refined noblewoman.
- The Mercerie of Venice
The Mercerie—the Venetians’ Marzaria—are the city’s liveliest and most characteristic streets.
- Calle dei Stagneri
A short commercial calle in the sestiere of San Marco, between the Mercerie and campo de la Fava, a stone’s throw from campo San Bartolomeo: one of the most frequented little streets of the centre, crossed by the calli of Sabbion and Calice.
- Palazzo Giustinian-Faccanon
A stone’s throw from the Rialto Bridge, overlooking the rio della Fava (a small canal), stands one of Venice’s most majestic Gothic buildings: Palazzo Giustinian-Faccanon — mind the surnames, the city counts several Giustinian houses, from the ’Vescovi’ of Dorsoduro to the Ca’ Giustinian of the Europa hotel — erected in the second half of the 15th century, when the Calendari were finishing the Doge’s Palace building site.
- Palazzo Gussoni (Rio della Fava)
From the Ponte della Fava, on the left bank of the rio (a Venetian canal), one of the most elegant Renaissance façades in Venice is reflected in the water: Palazzo Gussoni, also called Algarotti, a late-15th-century building attributed to Pietro Lombardo and his school.
- Chiesa di Santa Maria della Fava
A stone’s throw from the Rialto, in the small campo (square) of the same name, the church of Santa Maria della Fava guards one of the most elegant drawing-rooms of 18th-century Venice.
- Church of San Lio
On the little campo (square) halfway between Rialto and San Zaccaria stands San Lio, one of the oldest churches in Venice: the Badoer family founded it in the 9th century, dedicating it to St Catherine, and in 1054 it was dedicated to Pope Leo IX — San Lio in Venetian — who at the Roman council had defended the cause of the patriarchate of Grado against Gotebald, patriarch of Aquileia, and who, on coming to Venice, had granted privileges to the ducal basilica and other churches.
- Calle Carminati
A short calle (a Venetian lane) branching off Campo San Lio, in the sestiere (district) of Castello, beside the church of San Lio, running north to the Rio del Piombo, where the Ponte del Pistor connects it to Calle del Pistor.
- Ponte e Calle del Pistor
The Ponte and Calle del Pistor (a calle is a narrow Venetian street) take their name from the workshop of a pistor — a bread seller, prestinaio in dialect — that once stood at the foot of the bridge, near San Lio. The bridge, in stone with iron bands patterned with meanders and circles, spans the rio del Piombo (a small canal) — which in the 16th century was still called del Brusa Piombo, after the lead founder who worked there, and the sanitary registers record a Pasqueta, daughter of a certain Domenego brusapiombo, who died in 1559 — linking Calle Carminati to Calle del Pistor, between the parish of San Lio and that of Santa Marina; a recently opened pastry shop has earned it the further name of ’ponte de le Paste’ (bridge of the pastries).
- Corte del Fontego
A sottoportico (covered passage) in the side of Corte dei Specchieri slips into one of the oldest and least touched corners of the district: Corte del Fontego — also called di Ca’ Quartier, after the palace that the Quartieri silk merchants built there in the second half of the 14th century — a small closed courtyard where late-Gothic constructions of the 14th-15th centuries survive: arches, low porticoes, the design of a courtyard Venice that has vanished elsewhere.
- Calle Scaletta
A sotoportego (a covered passage under a building) and a narrow calle in the heart of Santa Marina, a stone’s throw from the Milion.
- Campo di Santa Marina
Campo Santa Marina is one of the quietest campi of the Castello sestiere, a parlour of colourful houses, cafe tables and a wellhead a few steps from the Miracoli and Rialto.
- Ponte del Cristo
Between Campo Santa Marina and the Calle del Cristo, the Ponte del Cristo crosses the rio di Santa Marina at one of the most picturesque confluences in Castello, where three canals meet beneath a group of old palaces.
- Palazzo Marcello-Pindemonte-Papadopoli
At the corner where the rii (small canals) of Santa Marina meet, the great Palazzo Marcello-Pindemonte-Papadopoli guards three centuries of patrician history in a single triple surname: here the Anzelieri, merchants come from Lucca, had put up the first house — Giovanni Marcello, the doge’s father, already lived there — and Doge Nicolò bought the plot in 1474, the last year of his dogate; in the 17th century the façade on the rio was redone in monumental forms attributed to Baldassare Longhena — or to Francesco Contin; in 1701 came the Pindemonte, a family of historians and poets, and in 1808 the Papadopoli, Greek bankers from Corfu who amassed a legendary library and print collection there.
- Fondamenta Sanudo (formerly delle Erbe)
Between the Miracoli and San Canciano, this short fondamenta (a canalside walkway) is called Sanudo, though for centuries it was known as delle Erbe, after the market stalls where greens were sold.
- Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel Barozzi
At the corner of the Rio della Panada (a Venetian canal) and the Rio di San Canciano, at the end of the Fondamenta Sanudo, Palazzo Soranzo-Van Axel is one of Venice’s most imposing Gothic palaces — yet guidebooks scarcely mentioned it before the 19th century.
- Calle Castelli
A quiet calle in Castello, behind the Campo dei Miracoli, bearing the name of a family that was not even Venetian.
- Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli
In the small campo (square) gathered between two branches of the rio dei Miracoli opens one of the purest jewels of the Venetian Renaissance: the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, clad in polychrome marble like a casket.
- Ponte dei Miracoli
The Ponte dei Miracoli links Calle dei Miracoli (street) with Campo dei Miracoli, the square of the same name, across a rio (Venetian canal) that continues from the rio di San Lio to the rio di Ca’ Widmann.
- Calle dei Miracoli
Everyone runs to the church of the Miracoli, the marble jewel-box of the Lombardi - but the miracle began here, in this calle squeezed between the campo and Santa Maria Nova.
- Campo di Santa Maria Nuova
Just beyond the church of the Miracoli, Campo Santa Maria Nuova opens up: a bright, everyday square in Cannaregio that holds an absence.
- Palazzo Bembo-Boldù
At the eastern edge of Campo Santa Maria Nuova (a Venetian square) stands Palazzo Bembo-Boldù, a stern 15th-century building in archaic Gothic style.
- Palazzo Widmann-Foscari
From the Ponte Widmann you can glimpse the 17th-century façade of Palazzo Widmann-Foscari, overlooking the rio (small canal) di San Canciano, here also called the rio de Ca’ Widmann.
- Palazzo Loredan ai Miracoli
At the foot of the Ponte Widmann, on the corner of the rio (a Venetian canal) that runs behind Santa Maria dei Miracoli, stands Palazzo Loredan, a 16th-century building with a fine entrance portal at number 6059.
- Sottoportico del Magazen
A few steps from Santa Maria dei Miracoli, at the foot of the Ponte Widmann, this Cannaregio passage runs under the houses as far as the Fondamenta Widmann, between the palace of the rich merchants from Carinthia and the Ponte del Piovan.
- Ponte del Piovan (del Volto)
A small brick and stone bridge over the rio de Ca’ Widmann (a rio is a small canal) — the stretch of the rio di San Canciano that Venetians name after the palace that dominates it — between the Fondamenta del Piovan (a canalside walkway) and Calle Larga Giacinto Gallina, behind campo Santa Maria Nova (a campo is a small square), a stone’s throw from the church of the Miracoli.
- Calle Larga Giacinto Gallina
One of the widest streets of the sestiere (district) runs from Campo Santa Maria Nova towards Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo: it is Calle Larga Giacinto Gallina, dedicated to the Venetian playwright who in the 19th century took up Goldoni’s legacy.
- Ponte Panada
The Ponte Panada, of stone with brick bands — restored in 1996 — crosses the rio of the same name between the Calle del Piovan and the Calle Larga Giacinto Gallina, on the old boundary between the parishes of San Canciano and Santa Maria Nova.
- Calle della Testa
A calle of the sestiere of Castello, on the borders with Cannaregio, close to Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Scuola Grande di San Marco: a long, almost straight street that starts from the Calle delle Erbe and comes out towards the Fondamente Nove, dotted with Istrian stone coats of arms walled onto the houses.
- Casa Grifalconi
In Calle della Testa (a street), a couple of steps from the campo (square) of San Zanipolo, a great 14th-century Gothic portal leads into a sottoportico (covered passageway) and then into one of the most beautiful courtyards in Venice.
- Ponte del Cavallo
On the Rio dei Mendicanti, at the entrance to Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, on the border between Cannaregio and Castello, stands a bridge of brick and stone, with brick parapets and two carved faces on each side.
- Colleoni Monument
The Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo (a campo is a Venetian square) — ’San Zanipolo’ for the Venetians — is, after St Mark’s Square, the most monumental in the city: from here passed the coffins of the doges and dignitaries for the last honours in the great church, and here the crowd gathered for solemn ceremonies, as when in 1782 Pope Pius VI blessed it from a loggia erected against the Scuola di San Marco.
- Scuola Grande di San Marco
On the campo (square) of Santi Giovanni e Paolo opens the most Roman façade of the Venetian Renaissance: that of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, one of the six Scuole Grandi — the ’Great Schools’, so called because of the sizeable incomes they employed in religious exercises and works of charity — and one of the city’s oldest lay confraternities, born in the 13th century from the flagellant movement and transferred here in 1437, beside the Dominican basilica.
- Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo
San Zanipolo is not just a great Gothic church: it is the place where Venice staged its own political memory.
- Fondamenta dei Mendicanti
The fondamenta (a canalside walkway) that skirts the rio (a Venetian canal) behind the Scuola Grande di San Marco (a Venetian confraternity) is one of the most intense waterfronts in Venice: on one side the great complex of the former Mendicanti hospital — today the Ospedale Civile, where Venetians have been born and cared for for two centuries — on the other, surprisingly, two squeri, the boatyards where gondolas are still built and repaired, with the scent of wood and pitch reaching as far as the bridge.
- Chiesa di San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti
Overlooking the rio (a Venetian canal) that gives it its name, behind the Scuola Grande di San Marco, the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti ideally closes seven centuries of Venetian care: from the first shelter in Dorsoduro, the corte ai Santi Gervasio e Protasio where in 1225 the lepers were gathered — leprosy, brought by ships returning from Syria, was called ’mal di San Lazzaro’ — to the island-lazaretto of 1262, down to the hospice created here in 1500 after the land reclamation for San Zanipolo.
- Palazzo Merati
At the foot of the Ponte dei Mendicanti, where the rio opens onto the northern lagoon, Palazzo Merati stretches along the Fondamenta Nuove, paved in 1589 under Doge Pasquale Cicogna.
- Fondamente Nuove
The Fondamente Nove — in the older spelling, Fondamente Nuove — are the promenade that draws the northern limit of Venice: an unbroken waterfront running for almost a kilometre between Cannaregio and Castello, from the Sacca della Misericordia to Santa Giustina.
- Chiesa di Santa Maria del Pianto
At the far end of the Fondamente Nove, where Venice looks towards the northern islands, a high wall hides one of the city’s most singular churches: whoever passes by boat barely sees the octagonal drum surfacing above the little garden.
- Palazzo Corniani Algarotti
Between the Fondamenta Nuove (canalside walkways) and Calle Larga dei Boteri, in the working-class Cannaregio that looks towards Murano, Palazzo Corniani Algarotti is a 16th-century residence that owes its fame to an extraordinary tenant: Francesco Algarotti, the writer and art critic who brought Newton into the salons and Venetian masterpieces into the collections of kings.
- Palazzo Donà
On the Fondamente Nuove, the long northern waterfront open onto the lagoon, stands out the severe façade of Palazzo Donà dalle Rose: smooth Istrian-stone rustication, pointed-arch doorway, and behind the threshold an unexpected treasure — two colossal fanò, the gilded wooden stern lanterns that tradition holds came from the Donà galley at Lepanto.
- Calle delle Tre Croci
Three crosses in the name, only one in reality — and perhaps not even that: this calle (a Venetian street) in Cannaregio descends from the Fondamente Nuove towards San Canciano, in the old contrada dei Birri, which was not a family but a canal: the Biria, perhaps a corruption of Bierum, the watercourse that drove the mills, buried today beneath the Rio terà dei Birri (a filled-in canal).
- Calle dei Botteri
On this calle (street) in Cannaregio, at the last edge of 16th-century Venice, stood the house where Tiziano Vecellio lived for forty-five years and died in 1576 — but the street’s name is older than the painter and tells of another world: that of the boteri, the master coopers who built barrels, vats and bottles for the wine and oil of the whole city.
- Casa di Tiziano
Between Campo del Tiziano (square) and the Calle dei Botteri (street) in Cannaregio, at the northernmost edge of 16th-century Venice, stands the house where Titian Vecellio lived for forty-five years, from 1531 until his death in 1576.
- Calle della Pietà
Calle de la Pietà crosses the contrada dei Birri, just north of San Canciano, as far as the rio (a small canal) of the same name and the ponte drio la Pietà.
- Corte e Ramo della Carità
Mind the name: this Carità is not the one of the Accademia, in Dorsoduro, but a corte (courtyard) and a ramo (small lane) in Birri, at San Canciano, a step from Campo di Tiziano — a closed court, one of those where Venice opens up by surprise and closes again straight after.
- Calle dei Cordoni
This calletta (small lane) lies in the sestiere (district) of Cannaregio, in the San Canciano neighbourhood of Birri, a working-class area stretching between Campo Tiziano, corte della Carità and corte Battagia, towards the rio dei Santi Apostoli (a Venetian canal).
- Calle dei Volti
In the maze of little streets behind Campo dei Gesuiti, the name comes neither from a family nor from a trade: the ’volti’ are the arches that join the houses on the two sides of the calle, mutually supporting them - a place-name that Venice repeated several times, and that survives here in the plural because the arches were many.
- Calle del Fumo
Hidden in the heart of the Biri quarter, between San Canciano and the Fondamente Nove, this calle owes its name to a dirty and precious industry: a lampblack factory, the black, greasy powder that was collected by burning carbon-rich substances.
- Campiello del Pestrin
You will think you are lost, and that is the right effect: the Campiello del Pestrin is a handkerchief of quiet hidden in the maze of Cannaregio, a stone’s throw from the Fondamenta Nove.
- Calle Varisco
Calle Varisco holds a record: at 53 centimetres it is the narrowest calle (a Venetian street) in Venice, and one of the narrowest in Europe.
- Calle Bardi
A little calle in the sestiere of Cannaregio, in the district of San Canciano: a veritable maze of alleyways that old documents call ’in Birri’, from the Biria canal that once crossed the area.
- Ponte Ramo e Calle Noris
A bridge, a calle (narrow street) and a ramo (side street) all bear the same surname here in Birri, the neighbourhood behind San Canciano.
- Calle Campiello Crosetta
This calle (narrow street) and campiello (small square) lie in the sestiere (district) of Cannaregio, in the San Canciano neighbourhood, amid a maze of modest little lanes between calle dei Bardi, calle del Campaniel and corte Battagia, close to the rio dei Santi Apostoli (a Venetian canal).
- Calle del Campaniel
This little calle in the Cannaregio district leads to the campiello (small square) of San Canciano, now named after Bruno Crovato, and to the church of the same name.
- Chiesa di San Canciano
In the quiet heart of its campiello (a small square) in Cannaregio, San Canciano keeps the memory of the refugees from Aquileia who fled the invasions: dedicated to the martyr brothers Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla and their tutor Protus, killed in 304, it was founded, by tradition, in 864 and consecrated on 20 May 1351 by the bishop of Jesolo.
- Ponte di San Canciano
Thirteen steps from the Campo di San Canciano (a campo is a small square) and seven towards the Calle della Malvasia (a calle is a lane): the San Canciano bridge, in Cannaregio, crosses the rio dei Santi Apostoli (a small canal), resting its base in the ground floor of a palace, where two old iron hooks await the hands of passers-by — touching them brings good luck, tradition swears.
- Campiello Flaminio Corner
A little square in Cannaregio that was not born of an ancient campo (square): the Campiello Flaminio Corner was opened in 1863 by demolishing a block of houses, within the half-century-long building site that carved out Strada Nova, the thoroughfare that today links the station to Rialto.
- Ponte San Giovanni Crisostomo
A stone bridge with broad steps and an iron parapet, over the rio di San Giovanni Crisostomo, between the campo of the same name and a campiello named after Flaminio Corner — the 18th-century historian of Venetian churches, author of the monumental Ecclesiae Venetae.
- Campo San Giovanni Crisostomo
One of the smallest campi in Venice, wedged between the church and the houses behind Rialto: Campo San Giovanni Crisostomo is little more than the churchyard of Codussi’s church, so tight that the façade cannot be looked at frontally.
- Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo
A few steps from Rialto, in the little campo that opens between Strada Nova and San Bortolomio, San Giovanni Crisostomo is a compact jewel of the Venetian Renaissance: founded in 1080 as Santa Cecilia and destroyed in the great fire of 1475 - the same that burnt the house of the Polos in nearby Corte del Milion - it was rebuilt from 1495 to a design by Mauro Codussi, his last work, completed by his son Domenico around 1525; the new dedication came from a rare relic of John Chrysostom, the patriarch of Constantinople called ’golden-mouthed’ for his oratory, which had reached the lagoon from the East.
- Calle del Cagnoletto
Just behind the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo, this calle (narrow street) opens up. By Venetian standards, it is “wide” and has a name straight out of a sailor’s tale.
- Calle e Corte Morosini
A dark, narrow entrance, and then the surprise: one of the best-preserved medieval courtyards in Venice, a stone’s throw from the Rialto crowds yet as silent as a cloister.
- Teatro Malibran
The Teatro Malibran is the oldest theatre in Venice still active: the Grimani brothers built it from 1674 and opened it at carnival 1678 under the name Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, on the ashes of the Polo houses destroyed by the great fire of 1597 — and on the outer front the Veneto-Byzantine arches of that vanished world still survive.
- Case dei Polo (Corte Seconda del Milion)
Beyond the sotoportego (covered passageway) of the Milion opens one of the most secret corti (courtyards) in Venice: here stood the houses of the Polo, the family of merchants who gave the city its most famous traveller.
- Palazzo Bragadin Carabba
On the rio (a small Venetian canal) di San Lio, between the Ponte del Teatro and Campo Santa Marina, this is one of the best-preserved late-Gothic façades in Venice: a quadrifora with the coat of arms and the marble heads of the Bragadin family and a rusticated portal signed by Michele Sanmicheli in 1542, a Renaissance insert deliberately contrasting with the Gothic grace of the windows.
- Fondamenta del Dose
The Fondamenta del Dose runs along the rio di Santa Marina, in the Castello district, between Campo Santa Marina and Santa Maria Formosa: a quiet canal enclosed between tall houses and stone bridges.
- Calle del Paradiso
A few steps from San Lio you enter a corner of Venice frozen in the Middle Ages: Calle del Paradiso, narrow and dark, with the houses still roofed by projecting wooden eaves on barbacani — the jutting beams that widened the rooms without stealing space from the passageway.
- Salizada San Lio
In the Castello district, Salizada San Lio is one of the historic thoroughfares between Rialto and St Mark’s Square: ’salizada’ means ’paved’, and the streets bearing this name were the first to receive stone paving, when the rest of the city still walked on brick or earth.
- Ponte Sant'Antonio
A boundary bridge and a saint’s bridge: where the Salizada San Lio meets the Calle della Bissa, over the rio de la Fava, the Ponte Sant’Antonio links the district of Castello to that of San Marco: stone and brick, with iron bands of Gothic arches supported by little Istrian stone columns.
- Calle della Bissa
Behind Campo San Bartolomeo, a couple of steps from the Rialto Bridge, between the old districts of San Leone and San Bartolomeo, opens one of the most winding and best-preserved calli (a narrow Venetian street) in Venice: the Calle de la Bissa.
- Campo San Bartolomeo
This is the commercial heart of Venice, the point where all the streets that matter cross: the Mercerie towards San Marco, the Rialto Bridge, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the Strada Nova.
- Church of San Bartolomeo
Hard against the Rialto Bridge, almost swallowed by the market buildings, San Bartolomeo is the invisible church of central Venice: founded in 840 as San Demetrio, martyr of Thessalonica — by Marco Orseolo and his son Bartolomeo according to Sansovino, then rebuilt with three naves by the Salonesi, Belegna and Vallarella families — renewed under Doge Domenico Selvo in 1170 and dedicated to the apostle, and seat of sixteen scuole and confraternities, it was the spiritual reference point of the German merchants of the nearby Fontego — who here, on the initiative of Cristoforo Foscari, says Sansovino, commissioned Dürer’s Feast of the Rosary, today in Prague, while Sebastiano del Piombo painted for it the organ shutters that ended up in the Accademia.