A walk with 78 stops, from St Mark's Square to Calle dei Segretari.
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.
- Ponte dei Ferali
A small stone bridge joining the Merceria di San Zulian to Calle Fiubera, the only crossing over the short rio dei Ferai (a Venetian canal): together with the rii dei Scoacamini, delle Procuratie, del Cappello and the Orseolo it encloses the islet of San Gallo, in the heart of San Marco.
- Little Church of Santa Croce degli Armeni
There is a church in Venice that cannot be seen: hidden inside the Sotoportego degli Armeni (a covered passageway), a stone’s throw from the Merceria and St Mark’s Square, the little church of Santa Croce is the only medieval Armenian church in Italy still open for worship of the Eastern rite.
- Spadaria
A narrow calle (street) dense with shop windows, a stone’s throw from San Zulian and the Calle Larga: the Spadaria owes its name to the armourers’ workshops, the swordsmiths who forged the blades of the Serenissima (the Republic of Venice) here - swords, daggers, armour for a weapon-bearing city that armed its pride as well.
- Calle Larga San Marco
They call it “larga”, wide, because it really is: in a district of narrow calli (Venetian streets), this road running from the Mercerie dell’Orologio towards the rio (canal) of the Doge’s Palace was one of the first in Venice to be widened.
- Farmacia all'Insegna del Salvatore
A stone’s throw from the Spadaria, Palazzo Anzelieri, built by merchants from Lucca, shelters one of the rarest sights of everyday Venetian life from the 18th century, on Calle Larga San Marco (a Venetian street): the Farmacia all’Insegna del Salvatore, an old apothecary’s shop that seems to have stood still in time.
- Calle al Ponte de l'Anzolo
A calle (a Venetian lane) that promises an angel — and the angel really is there, but you have to know where to look.
- Ponte del Remedio
At the heart of Castello, Ponte del Remedio owes its curious name to Lorenzo Remedio, a malvasia wine seller who lived here as early as the 16th century.
- Palazzo Soranzo (Casa dell'Angelo)
At the corner of the Rio del Mondo Novo, with its entrance on the Ponte del Remedio, Palazzo Soranzo is called the Casa dell’Angelo (House of the Angel) for the small 14th-century marble image walled into the facade: an angel in a tabernacle that legend links to a story of devils and monkeys.
- Ponte Pasqualigo e Avogadro
Venice is not short of bridges with two names, but here there are two names because there are two rii (Venetian canals): the Ponte Pasqualigo e Avogadro is a double stone bridge that crosses the point where the rio de San Zaninovo - also called del Remedio - meets the rio di Santa Maria Formosa, a stone’s throw from Campiello Querini Stampalia.
- Campiello Querini-Stampalia
Stop in the campiello (a small square) and read the palace like a house grown over generations.
- Campiello Santa Maria Formosa
Behind the square’s grand theatre lies its backstage: a quiet campiello (small square) on the rio di Santa Maria Formosa (a Venetian canal).
- Campo di Santa Maria Formosa
Between St Mark’s and Rialto, in the heart of Castello, one of Venice’s largest and liveliest campi (Venetian squares) opens up: a 120-metre-wide space ringed by Gothic and Renaissance palaces.
- Palazzo Malipiero-Trevisan
Separated from Campo Santa Maria Formosa (campo means square) by an arm of the homonymous rio (Venetian canal) — reachable only via a private little bridge — Palazzo Malipiero-Trevisan has a façade that is almost a jewel casket: Istrian stone, Greek and Egyptian marbles, porphyry medals and cameos, verde antico and serpentine that make it appear bejewelled, as the nineteenth-century guides wrote.
- Ruga Giuffa
Ruga Giuffa is one of the most elegant calli (streets) behind Campo Santa Maria Formosa — and its name is a small atlas: ’ruga’ in Venetian means street, while ’Giuffa’ is almost certainly a corruption of Julfa, the Armenian city the merchants who lived here and traded in silk, cotton, wool and dyes from the East came from.
- Palazzo Grimani a Santa Maria Formosa
At the end of Ramo Grimani, a stone’s throw from Campo Santa Maria Formosa (square), hides the most Roman palazzo in Venice: the residence that the brothers Vettore and Giovanni Grimani — the procurator and the patriarch of Aquileia — transformed in the mid-16th century into an ancient domus, with a porticoed courtyard, stuccoes and frescoes in the Roman manner by the finest masters of the school.
- Palazzo Bon
At the end of Calle dell’Arco (a narrow Venetian street), tucked beneath an arch that crosses it, you can glimpse one of the city’s oldest façades: a 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine two-light window and cladding in eastern marble.
- Salizada Zorzi
Salizada means ’paved’: these were the first streets that Venice paved, when the rest of the city still walked on beaten earth, and paving was a sign of prestige and important traffic.
- Palazzo Zorzi a San Severo
Between the salizada Zorzi (a salizada is one of the first paved streets of Venice) and the rio di San Severo (a small Venetian canal), in the sestiere (district) of Castello, the white Istrian stone cladding of Palazzo Zorzi stands out — also called Zorzi Galeoni: a great Renaissance palazzo erected in the early years of the 16th century to a design attributed to Mauro Codussi, the architect of the nearby church of Santa Maria Formosa.
- Palazzo Priuli all'Osmarin
On the Fondamenta dell’Osmarin (canalside walkway), on the corner with the rio (a Venetian canal) that takes its name from the nearby Ponte del Diavolo, Palazzo Priuli is one of the finest Gothic houses in Venice: it was built for Giovanni Priuli, who died here in 1456.
- Fondamenta San Severo
In the silent heart of Castello, this waterfront runs along the rio di San Severo (a Venetian canal) between two eras of the city: on one side the façades of some of the finest Venetian palazzi, on the other the memory of a vanished church that, after ten centuries of life, ended up demolished to make room for a prison.
- Palazzo Zorzi-Bon
On the rio di San Severo (a Venetian canal), in Castello, squeezed between the Codussan Palazzo Zorzi — today the UNESCO seat — and the Palazzo Grimani of Santa Maria Formosa, stands Palazzo Zorzi-Bon: 14th-century architecture retouched in the Renaissance, which still preserves on the piano nobile a pointed-arch five-light window surmounted by a four-light window, with the coloured marbles that made Ruskin cry out at the ’house of bacon’.
- Palazzo Dolfin a San Lorenzo
At number 5123 on Calle Larga San Lorenzo (a long street), among the noteworthy palaces along the way to San Lorenzo, stands this 15th-century Gothic house, once owned by a branch of the Dolfin family.
- Former Convent of San Giovanni Laterano (Istituto Tommaseo)
One of the unluckiest and longest-lived convents in Venice: founded at the beginning of the 16th century beside an old oratory of the Lateran canons, the monastery of San Giovanni in Laterano - San Zuan Lateran, for the Venetians - was burnt down by a lightning strike in 1573, rose again thanks to just two nuns, paid its annual due to Rome in pounds of saffron and was suppressed in 1810.
- Palazzo Cappello a San Lorenzo
The dark, 16th-century facade of Palazzo Cappello closes off the far end of the rio (a Venetian canal) di San Lorenzo, a couple of steps from campo Santa Maria Formosa.
- Campo di San Lorenzo
Campo San Lorenzo is one of the largest and quietest campi (Venetian squares) in Castello, dominated by the huge bare-brick church that gives it its name, its façade never completed.
- Church of San Lorenzo
At the far end of the broad campo (square) looms the huge dark brick mass of the church of San Lorenzo, recognisable by its raw facade that the marble cladding never reached.
- Ponte de la Comenda
The Ponte de la Comenda crosses the rio di Sant’Antonin (a Venetian canal) in Castello, between the fondamenta of San Giorgio dei Schiavoni and that of the Furlani (canalside walkways), and leads into Calle dei Furlani right in front of the Scuola Dalmata.
- Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni
On the quiet Fondamenta dei Furlani, a canalside walkway, you’ll find a place that seems untouched by time: the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice’s confraternity of Dalmatians.
- Church and Priory of San Giovanni di Malta
At the end of a blind calle (street) behind the Scuola degli Schiavoni, an entrance passage leads into the silent courtyard of the Priory of San Giovanni di Malta: here, where the calle dei Furlani preserves the name of the Friulians, the Templars first and then, from 1312, the Knights of Malta had their Venetian house — church, hospital, cloister and garden.
- Calle dei Furlani
From Ponte de la Comenda towards Campo delle Gatte runs the calle that was once Venice’s Friulian quarter.
- Riello
A tiny name for a tiny rivulet: ’riello’ in Venetian is a small channel, a rio (a Venetian canal) with a bed so narrow it earns the diminutive, and this one was so small it left its name to a calle (a street), a bridge and two fondamente (canalside walkways).
- Campo delle Gatte
At Castello’s easternmost edge, beyond San Francesco della Vigna, this little campo (Venetian square) has two names.
- Ponte dei Scudi
In the quiet heart of Castello, between the Celestia and San Francesco della Vigna, the Ponte dei Scudi crosses the rio (a Venetian canal) of the same name with its structure of bricks and stones and iron bands forming oblique crosses.
- Calle del Mandolin
This calle (narrow street) in Castello runs through the heart of the San Martino parish, between Calle dei Scudi and Campo dei Due Pozzi.
- Campo Due Pozzi
A name that is a gentle lie: in the Campo dei Due Pozzi, ’the square of the two wells’, at the far end of Castello towards San Martino, there is now only one well.
- Calle Magno
In the Santa Ternita quarter, at the north-eastern edge of Castello, a calle (street) so narrow you almost lose it guards one of the most complete late-Gothic palaces in Venice: Casa Magno, the 14th-15th-century dwelling of a patrician family that had come — it is said — from Oderzo at the time of the invasions.
- Calle Donà
At the easternmost edge of Castello, where the city ends in the green of the Arsenal, a calle (street) bears the name of a palazzo that no longer belongs to it: Calle Donà, after the Palazzo Donà originally erected by the Celsi – the patrician family that had houses here since the 13th century and founded, with the Sagredo, the church of Santa Ternità.
- Ponte de la Scoazzera
Ponte de la Scoazzera crosses the rio dei Scudi, a small Venetian canal, in a quiet, out-of-the-way corner of Castello, between Calle Donà and Campo a fianco la Chiesa.
- Campo Santa Trinità (Santa Ternita)
A quiet campo (square) in Castello, a stone’s throw from the Arsenal, where the church that gave it its name no longer stands.
- 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.
- Campo della Celestia
Campo della Celestia is one of the quietest and most secluded campi (squares) in Castello, a large tree-lined space opening onto the northern edge of the Arsenal.
- Ramo al Ponte e Ponte San Francesco
The Ponte San Francesco, also known as ‘del Nunzio’, crosses the rio (a Venetian canal) de San Francesco de la Vigna in Castello, between the Campiello de la Chiesa and the Ramo al Ponte.
- Campo San Francesco della Vigna
At Venice’s far north-eastern edge, where the city grows almost silent, the campo (square) opens up, named for the vineyard still cultivated behind the convent walls.
- Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna
In the silence of its great campo (square) in Castello, San Francesco della Vigna is one of the greatest buildings of the Venetian Renaissance: the Observant Friars Minor erected it on the vineyards that Marco Ziani, son of doge Pietro, left them in 1253, in a place that tradition held to be marked by the apparition of the angel to St Mark — the ’Pax tibi Marce’ that became the motto of the Serenissima (the Republic of Venice).
- Oratory of the Holy Stigmata
The 17th-century building overlooking Campo San Francesco della Vigna — the campo (square) that Venetians still call ’della Confraternita’ — is the oratory of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Stigmata under the invocation of St Paschal Baylon, the devotional scuola (confraternity) linked to the great Franciscan church next door.
- Salizzada di Santa Giustina
In Venice, ’salizzada’ is a mark of distinction.
- Palazzo Contarini della Porta di Ferro
The Salizzada di Santa Giustina (a salizzada is a paved main street) is one of the most authentic urban glimpses of Castello: sober patrician residences, high convent walls and, at the corner on the rio (canal) di San Francesco, the marble statue of the Virgin and Child attributed to Giuseppe Torretto.
- Calle del Fontego
A quiet calle (street) in the Castello sestiere (district) runs from Salizada di Santa Giustina to the bridge of the same name over the rio (a Venetian canal).
- Palazzo Morosini dalla Sbarra
At the foot of the Ponte del Fontego, in the heart of Castello, this palace presents its façade on the rio di Santa Giustina with the quiet confidence of a house that has nothing to prove.
- Campo Santa Giustina
A campo (square) that seems empty and yet tells everything: one of the few still dominated by water, with the rio di Santa Giustina to the west and the rio di San Francesco della Vigna to the south — the canals (rii) that were the real streets of Venice.
- Ex Chiesa di Santa Giustina
On the campo (a Venetian square) that bears its name, this great Baroque façade facing the rio (a Venetian canal) is the shell of one of Venice’s oldest churches.
- Calle Zon
Calle Zon (a calle is a Venetian street), behind Campo Santa Giustina (a square), bears the name of the family that still owns the buildings here today: the Zon, who came to Venice from Perugia where they were called Boncambi — the new surname derived from an ancestor named Uguccione, corrupted into Cion and then Zon. The Santa Giustina properties date back to 1400, when Michiele Zon married Lucrezia Dandolo.
- Barbaria delle Tole
Stop under the white nizioleto (street-sign plaque): Barbaria de le Tole.
- Palazzo Bragadin
Barbaria delle Tole owes its curious name to the great timber warehouses destined for trade with the lands of the Berbers — or, according to another explanation, to the fact that here they ’removed the beards’, that is, smoothed the planks.
- Ospedaletto and Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti
Along the Barbaria delle Tole — the calle (street) where timber, the ’tole’ (planks), once came ashore for a trade fragrant with resin and sparse voices — the facade of the Ospedaletto looms like a Baroque mask: giants and grotesque stone masks twist around the portal, signed by the overflowing imagination of Baldassare Longhena, with the giants by Giusto Le Court.
- Corte Muazzo
There is a corte (a Venetian courtyard) in Castello that not even digital maps record: Corte Muazzo, hidden behind a dark sotoportego (covered passageway) opening off Calle Muazzo, a stone’s throw from the busy Barbaria delle Tole yet as silent as a cloister.
- Calle e Ponte dell'Ospedaletto
The Ponte dell’Ospedaletto, in stone with iron bands in a Greek-key pattern, crosses the rio de San Giovanni Laterano (a Venetian canal) joining the Calle de l’Ospedaleto to the fondamenta (canalside walkway) of the same name, behind Santi Giovanni e Paolo and close against the Barbaria de le Tole.
- Calle e Ponte Tetta
The Ponte Tetta crosses the rio (a Venetian canal) of the same name in the sestiere (district) of Castello, between Calle Tetta and the fondamenta (canalside walkway), a short walk from San Giovanni Laterano.
- Calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa
One of the longest calli (streets) in Castello leads back from the Fondamenta Tetta (canalside walkway) towards Campo Santa Maria Formosa: a street of workshops, bookshops and small courtyards where two worlds coexist – medieval Venice, which left in an inner courtyard one of its oldest vere da pozzo (wellheads), and postcard Venice, with the most photographed bookshop in the city, the Acqua Alta, where the books sit in a gondola to escape the tides.
- Basilica di Santa Maria Formosa
In the campo (square) that bears its name stands one of Venice’s best-loved churches, so much so that Venetians simply call it ’la Formosa’.
- Oratorio di Santa Maria Formosa
Between the imposing Codussian church and its 17th-century bell tower, a low, anonymous building is wedged in like a masonry stopper.
- Palazzo Vitturi
On the north-east side of Campo Santa Maria Formosa, at civic number 5246, rises the square’s oldest building: Palazzo Vitturi, built in the second half of the 13th century in full Veneto-Byzantine style.
- Palazzo Donà a Santa Maria Formosa
Three Palazzi Donà stand in a row along the north side of Campo Santa Maria Formosa, one of Venice’s most striking squares.
- Palazzo Priuli, formerly Ruzzini
The palace closes the north side of Campo Santa Maria Formosa, one of Venice’s most striking squares, and its classical-looking façade is easy to recognise: three tiers of pilasters, string courses, balusters and a large arched dormer that carries the façade above the roofline.
- Borgoloco Pompeo Molmenti
A small, sheltered campo (square) between campo Santa Marina and campo Santa Maria Formosa, in the sestiere (district — Venice has six) of Castello: the place name ’borgoloco’ is found in Venice only here and near San Lorenzo.
- 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.
- Ponte dei Preti
A stone bridge over the rio del Pestrin (a Venetian canal), a stone’s throw from the Ponte del Paradiso, in one of the happiest place-name geographies of Venice: here ’priests’ and ’paradise’ meet on the same corner of water.
- Ponte delle Bande
On the Rio del Mondo Novo (a rio is a small Venetian canal), a stone’s throw from the façade of Santa Maria Formosa, this stone and brick bridge preserves in its name the echo of a Venetian invention: the «bande», that is, the parapets.
- Ponte della Guerra
The Ponte de la Guerra crosses the rio (Venetian canal) de San Zulian a step from the Merceria, on the border between San Marco and Castello: a stone bridge with a brick structure, iron bands in lozenges and, on the sides, three coats of arms of the Provveditori di Comun and two carved masks per side.
- Palazzo Papafava o Tasca
At the end of the short fondamenta (canalside walkway) beyond the Ponte della Guerra — the bridge that owes its name to the fist-fight ’wars’ between the Venetian factions — closes a palace that is a collage of stories.
- Calle dei Segretari
A calle (a Venetian lane) that wraps around the south flank of the church of San Zulian, between the campo (the square) and the Specchieri, and that bears the name of an invisible trade: the secretaries.