A walk with 98 stops, from St Mark's Square to Chiesa di San Marcuola.
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.
- Bacino Orseolo
It looks like a little harbour tucked behind the Procuratie Vecchie, and that is exactly what it is: the Bacino Orseolo is the gondola stazio (a licensed gondola rank) closest to St Mark’s Square.
- Campo San Luca
Ask a Venetian where the centre of Venice is, and many will point here.
- Calle del Forner
From Campo San Luca, the commercial drawing room of Venice, this calle (a Venetian lane) slipped towards the Corte del Teatro: ’forner’ in dialect means baker, and here an oven baked bread for the heart of the city.
- Teatro Goldoni
Behind Campo San Luca (a campo is a Venetian square), a couple of steps from the Rialto, a mosaic sign announces the oldest theatre in Venice - and the fourth oldest in Italy among those still staging: the Teatro Carlo Goldoni, opened in 1622 as the Teatro Vendramin di San Salvatore.
- Ponte del Lovo
One of the smallest bridges in Venice, over the rio di San Salvador, between the Scuola di San Teodoro and the old convent of the Canons: it is called ’del Lovo’ - which Venetians hear as ’del Lupo’ (of the wolf) - but the name comes from a citizen family which, alone among the exempted neighbours, had to build and maintain it. It is the smallest of the three stone bridges crossing this rio - the others are the Manin and the Balote - with a structure of brick and stone and meander-patterned iron balusters.
- Ex Convento di San Salvatore
On the north side of Campo San Salvador stretches the 16th-century building that was the convent of the Canons of San Salvador: six thousand square metres organised around two cloisters, attached to the church the canons kept for almost seven centuries.
- Campo San Salvatore
At the end of the Mercerie, a step from Rialto, Campo San Salvador is one of the few places in Venice where you can read the Risorgimento in the open air. At the centre, at the entrance to Calle Larga Mazzini, rises a marble column erected in 1898 for the seventeen months of Daniele Manin’s republic: the 1848-49 revolt that pitted Venice against the Austrian occupation until the surrender.
- Chiesa di San Salvatore
One of the largest and most important churches in Venice, facing its namesake campo (a Venetian square) a stone’s throw from the Merceria.
- Scuola Grande di San Teodoro
On Campo San Salvador (a Venetian square), two minutes from the Rialto, stands the seat of Venice’s oldest confraternity: the Scuola di San Teodoro was born in 1258 beside the church of the same name — and at first gathered in a room above the portego of San Salvador’s main door — the first of those that would become Grandi — but had to wait until 1552 to obtain the rank, the last of the six historic ones.
- Marzarieta 2 Aprile
Between Campo San Bartolomeo and Campo San Salvador runs the first stretch of the Mercerie, which the nizioleti (the painted street signs) today call Marzarieta 2 Aprile and which, like nearby Calle Larga XXII Marzo, bears a date instead of a saint: 2 April 1849, the day Daniele Manin made the besieged city cry out ’resistance at all costs’ against the Austrians.
- 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.
- Fontego dei Tedeschi
Beside the Rialto Bridge, on the Grand Canal, the massive bulk of the Fontego dei Tedeschi guards eight centuries of trade: here, since the 13th century, Germanic merchants — who brought metals, silver and cloth and left laden with spices and goods from the Orient — had warehouses, lodgings and even a chapel, under the watchful eye of the Serenissima.
- Ponte dell'Olio
The Ponte de l’Olio crosses the rio del Fontego dei Tedeschi, joining the salizada San Giovanni Grisostomo to the salizada del Fontego, on the border between San Marco and Cannaregio.
- Palazzo Amadi
On the rio dell’Olio (a small canal), behind the Fontego dei Tedeschi, this 15th-century Gothic palazzo displays the elegant central fenestration typical of the lesser patrician houses: two trilobed three-light windows with small balconies between pairs of single lights, and below the pointed-arched water portal.
- 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.
- Campiello del Remer and the remains of Palazzo Lion-Morosini
The remains in the Campiello del Remer, a little square on the water just a stone’s throw from Rialto, are all that is left of a 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine house: the palace of the Lion, merchants who returned from the Levant with great fortunes.
- 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.
- 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.
- Calle Dolfin
A surname turned into an address: the Calle Dolfin connects Campo dei Santi Apostoli to the maze of sotoporteghi (covered passageways) towards San Giovanni Crisostomo - those of the Magazen and of the Falier, names still in use - and takes its name from the Dolfin, one of the oldest families of the patriciate, who had their house here.
- Campiello Riccardo Selvatico
A breathing space off Strada Nova, between San Bortolomio and the Santi Apostoli: a few houses, a handful of door numbers, the tables of the street-food spots and a name almost nobody can decipher.
- The Bread Stele
Under the arches of the Sotoportego Falier, on the edge of the Rio dei Santi Apostoli, stands a tall slab of Istrian stone: on top the lion of St Mark, below, tightly packed, dozens of lines of capital letters.
- Ca' da Mosto
Among the oldest palaces on the Grand Canal, Ca’ da Mosto has kept almost all its 13th-century appearance: a row of raised Byzantine arches runs above a portico with three arches, where merchant boats once unloaded their goods straight into the house.
- Palazzo Falier
On the rio dei Santi Apostoli (a rio is a Venetian canal), above the sottoportico (covered passageway) that follows its bank, rises one of the oldest houses in Venice: Palazzo Falier, built in primitive form as early as the 11th century and rebuilt in 1105 after a fire.
- Campo Santi Apostoli
The broad campo (Venetian square) at the start of Strada Nova, the straight 19th-century thoroughfare that cuts through Cannaregio, is one of Venice’s liveliest and least noticed squares.
- Chiesa dei Santi Apostoli
At the start of the Strada Nova, on one of the liveliest and busiest campi (squares) in Venice, stands one of the city’s oldest churches.
- Palazzo Corner
At number 4438, almost opposite the church of Santi Apostoli, this palazzo holds an absence: its façade was once entirely covered in frescoes by Camillo Ballini, a late-16th-century painter.
- Salizzada del Pistor
One of the liveliest salizzade in Cannaregio bears the name of those who kneaded the city’s bread here: the ’pistori’, the bakers, a guild so important that it was kept under close watch by the Republic — a few steps away, under the sotoportego Falier, survives the only bread stele left in Venice, the proclamation of 27 October 1727 by Doge Alvise III Mocenigo against ’foreign’ bread, also carved on the side facing the rio so that the boatmen could read it. And bread was also assistance: in 1780 the Ten transferred to the scuola degli Albanesi the assets of the suppressed guild of the workers of San Matteo di Rialto, forming at the Zecca an untouchable capital that would cover the bakers in sickness.
- Calle dei Proverbi
A stone’s throw from Campo dei Santi Apostoli opens a calle unusually wide and straight, and its name is a small enigma: it is called dei Proverbi (of the Proverbs) because on a house, demolished after 1840, two maxims could once be read written around the frames of two balconies.
- Ponte e Fondamenta dei Sartori
The Ponte dei Sartori, an iron bridge with scrolled railings, crosses the short rio dei Gozzi (a rio is a small canal) between the Salizada del Spezier (one of Venice’s first paved streets) and the Fondamenta dei Sartori (a canalside walkway), a stone’s throw from the Campo dei Gesuiti.
- Palazzo Seriman
At number 4581 of the Salizada Seriman (a salizada is one of Venice’s paved main streets), between the Santi Apostoli and the Gesuiti, rises one of the best-preserved Gothic palaces in Cannaregio: a pointed-arch construction of the 15th century of the Dolce and then the Contarini — whose coat of arms remains fixed on the wall of the Calle Venier — which passed in the 18th century to the Seriman, an Armenian family fled from Isfahan that bought its way into the patriciate by lending the Republic seven hundred and twenty thousand ducats for the war of Candia.
- Campo dei Gesuiti
A rectangle of water and bricks in deep Cannaregio, a step from the Fondamenta Nuove: the Campo dei Gesuiti (campo means square) stretches from south to north dominated by an entire side of conventual history — the white Baroque façade of the church of Santa Maria Assunta and the bulk of the monastery running beside it. Yet the Jesuits arrived here late: the complex had been founded in the 12th century by the Crociferi, who opened a monastery, hospital and church, and still today the Oratorio dei Crociferi keeps Palma il Giovane’s masterpieces next to Palazzo Zen. Opposite, the council houses with their coloured plasters and a well on hexagonal steps bearing the engraved date 1527, which was already here when Canaletto painted the campo: one of the few places in Venice where today’s reality and the 18th-century view coincide almost perfectly.
- The Church of Santa Maria Assunta dei Gesuiti
The vast campo (square) of the Gesuiti is dominated by the church that the Society of Jesus intended as a statement of its return.
- Oratorio dei Crociferi
In Campo dei Gesuiti (a campo is a Venetian square), almost opposite the triumphal Baroque façade of the church, stands its exact opposite: a medieval building of simple gabled structure, which was the hospital of the Crociferi — the religious order that from the 12th century gave shelter and care to those leaving for the Holy Land — and then a hospice for poor women, a function it still keeps today.
- Palazzi Zen
Along the Fondamenta Zen (a fondamenta is a canalside street), just past the Ponte dei Gesuiti, stretches the group of palaces that housed one of the most extraordinary seafaring families of the Serenissima: the Zeno, who gave the Venetian patriciate a doge, Renier (1253-1268), the admiral Carlo ’Capitano da mar’ among the victors of the war of Chioggia, and the brothers Nicolò and Antonio, legendary explorers of the northern seas.
- Fondamenta Santa Caterina
The Fondamenta Santa Caterina, a canalside walkway, runs alongside the rio (a Venetian canal) of the same name in Cannaregio, between Calle della Racchetta (a street) and Fondamente Nove.
- Chiesa e Convento di Santa Caterina
Tucked away in the quiet northern calli (Venetian streets) of Cannaregio, this former church tells almost a thousand years of Venice’s story.
- 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.
- Sacca della Misericordia
At the north-eastern tip of Cannaregio, where the Fondamente Nove canal meets the lagoon, opens the Sacca della Misericordia: ’sacca’ is the Venetian name for a basin of water open on one side only, into which several rii flow.
- Palazzo Molin
Of this palace, above all the name survives: the Ponte Molin, over the rio di Santa Caterina (a Venetian canal), takes it from the Palazzo Molin that stood at its feet, in the Calle de la Racheta — a fine archiacuto (Gothic) building, ’Gothic architecture’ for Coronelli — which the old guides listed as restored but which was in fact demolished in 1819.
- Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava
On the Canale della Misericordia, in the northernmost corner of Cannaregio, is mirrored the late-Gothic façade of Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, erected in the fifteenth century for the Pesaro family and passed to the Papafava — an ancient cadet branch of the Paduan Carraresi — with the marriage, celebrated in 1615, of Pesarina Pesaro and Bonifacio Papafava — who to enter the senatorial patriciate paid the Republic, engaged in the war of Candia, a full four hundred thousand ducats.
- Sottoportico dei Preti
In Venice the street does not always go around the houses: sometimes it passes beneath them.
- Ponte della Racchetta
The Ponte de la Racheta spans the rio di San Felice in Cannaregio, where the Calle de la Racheta debouches between the fondamente of San Felice and Santa Caterina.
- Fondamenta San Felice
In Cannaregio, a few steps from the Strada Nova, this fondamenta (a canalside walkway) runs along the rio di San Felice (a Venetian canal), opposite the old parish church.
- Ponte della Misericordia
The Ponte della Misericordia, built of stone with a brick structure and iron parapet bands, crosses the rio de Noal where it flows into the Canale della Misericordia.
- Scuola Nuova della Misericordia
In the silence of Cannaregio, between the Fondamenta della Misericordia (a fondamenta is a canalside walkway) and the Campo dell’Abbazia (a campo is a Venetian square), rises a mass of bare brick as large as a Roman basilica: it is the Scuola Nuova della Misericordia, the palace that Jacopo Sansovino began in 1532 for one of the oldest and richest confraternities in Venice, and which never received the planned stone facing.
- Campo dell'Abbazia
Welcome to one of the most secluded and picturesque campi in Venice.
- Abbey of the Misericordia
The Campo dell’Abbazia della Misericordia is not a single monument, but a small atlas of religious and civil Venice.
- Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia
On the Campo dell’Abbazia, one of the quietest corners of Cannaregio, you recognise it at once: a long Gothic facade of brick and Istrian stone, crowned by a curving gable and a bizarre dark turret.
- Corte Vecchia
Corte Vecchia, between the Fondamenta dell’Abbazia and the Ponte della Sacca, owes its adjective to the ’Scuola Vecchia’: the original seat of the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia, a confraternity of Battuti instituted in 1308 with the consent of the prior Pietro Civran and the permission of Doge Pietro Gradenigo — beside the homonymous abbey church founded in 939 on the grassy ground called Val Verde.
- Ponte di Sacca
The Ponte di Sacca crosses the rio (a small canal) della Madonna dell’Orto at the northern edge of Cannaregio, between Corte Vecchia and the fondamenta (canalside walkway) named after Cardinal Gasparo Contarini.
- Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo
At the far north of Cannaregio, where the city thins out and begins to smell of the lagoon, the Fondamenta Gaspare Contarini (a fondamenta is a canalside walkway) runs alongside one of the most singular palaces in Venice: a long Renaissance front without symmetries, raised in the 16th century by the Contarini ’dal Zaffo’, the only patrician house that could boast a feudal title — they were, in fact, counts of Jaffa, in Palestine.
- Palazzo Minelli-Spada
At the far north of Cannaregio, where Fondamenta Gaspare Contarini runs along the rio della Madonna dell’Orto and Venice begins to blur into the lagoon, opens this rich 17th-century facade.
- Palazzo Mastelli del Cammello
On the rio della Madonna dell’Orto stands a palace that Venetians simply call the Casa del Cammello (House of the Camel).
- Church of the Madonna dell'Orto
At the northernmost tip of Cannaregio, on one of the last Venetian campi (squares) still paved in herringbone brick, stands the church of the Madonna dell’Orto, one of the city’s most beautiful Gothic temples — and the church of Jacopo Tintoretto.
- Scuola dei Mercanti
Beside the church of the Madonna dell’Orto stretches an almost unadorned brick façade: it looks like a warehouse, and instead it is the only Venetian building designed by Andrea Palladio that does not resemble Palladio at all. It is the Scuola dei Mercanti, the home of the confraternity of Venice’s merchants under the protection of St Christopher — the giant who carried travellers on his shoulders, a perfect saint for those who crossed the lagoon with their goods.
- Fondamenta della Madonna dell'Orto
The long bank running alongside the rio della Madonna dell’Orto (a Venetian canal) is the waterfront of the Gothic church of San Cristoforo — the one everyone calls Madonna dell’Orto after the miraculous statue, also known as the ’Odorosa’ — which the sculptor Giovanni de Santi, dissatisfied with the commission, had placed in his own vegetable garden next door: at night it gave off strange flashes of light, the Venetians flocked to it on pilgrimage and the miracles multiplied, until the bishop persuaded the sculptor to hand it over to the friars of San Cristoforo.
- Corte del Cavallo
A little herringbone-paved courtyard behind the Madonna dell’Orto, where the most famous horse in Italy was made: here, between his house and his foundry, Alessandro Leopardi cast in bronze the equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni from Verrocchio’s model — the feat that earned him the nickname ’del Cavallo’ and gave the corte (courtyard) its name.
- Palazzo Benzi-Zecchini
At the end of the Fondamenta della Madonna dell’Orto, where the rio bends towards the Rio dei Zecchini, this 15th-century Gothic palazzo tells a story of wealth that arrived from Bergamo and never quite finished.
- Ponte Loredan
The Ponte Loredan is a wooden footbridge — about thirteen metres long, set on two wooden piles — that spans the rio de la Madona de l’Orto, connecting the fondamenta of northern Cannaregio with the area of the former Fatebenefratelli hospital: a strategic pedestrian crossing, as the City Council points out. The name comes from the nearby Calle Loredan and from the family, which the chroniclers even traced back to Mucius Scaevola and which gave the Republic three doges and great admirals: the most famous, Pietro, three times general da mar, conquered half of Dalmatia, in 1416 routed the Turks at Gallipoli taking fifteen galleys from them, and in 1431, in the Gulf of Rapallo, humbled the Milanese and Genoese, capturing General Spinola; his son Giacomo, also an admiral, set fire to twenty-two enemy ships in 1453.
- Calle Loredan
A calle of Cannaregio, in the Madonna dell’Orto quarter, which owes its name to one of the most illustrious houses of the Serenissima: in 1661 the noblewoman Isabetta Loredana owned various houses here, on the fondamenta degli Ormesini, and a family coat of arms in Istrian stone remains fixed in the wall, at number 1868.
- Ponte Brazzo
A stone bridge with iron bands, supported by little columns of Istrian stone, spans the short rio (a Venetian canal) Brazzo, linking the Fondamenta (canalside walkways) dei Mori and della Sensa, in the quiet heart of Cannaregio.
- Campo dei Mori
Stop in Campo dei Mori, in Cannaregio: a small square among old houses, marked by the memory of one family.
- Statue dei Mori (Case Mastelli)
The Mori of Campo dei Mori were not Moors at all. Rioba, Sandi and Afani were Greek merchants from the Peloponnese, the ancient Morea, whence the nickname, arrived in Venice in 1112 according to a Marciana chronicle.
- Casa di Jacopo Tintoretto
On the Fondamenta dei Mori, at number 3399, a tall narrow brick house with a Gothic three-light window still keeps the pace of the 15th century.
- Fondamenta della Misericordia
It is one of Venice’s longest fondamenta, running along the north bank of the rio della Misericordia, in the heart of Cannaregio.
- Palazzo Longo
On the Fondamenta della Misericordia, the liveliest walkway in Cannaregio, overlooks one of the last great Flamboyant Gothic façades remaining in Venice: Palazzo Longo, built at the end of the 15th century for Nicolò Longo, a member of the Senate of the Serenissima.
- Rovine dei Servi
Gothic fragments — arches, portals and walls from the great church of Santa Maria dei Servi — emerge along the Fondamenta Daniele Canal, beside the rio dei Servi.
- Ponte dei Lustraferri
The Ponte dei Lustraferri crosses the rio (Venetian canal) of the same name in Cannaregio, joining the Fondamenta degli Ormesini to the Fondamenta della Misericordia (fondamenta means canalside walkway).
- Palazzo Gheltoff
On the other bank of the rio (Venetian canal) della Misericordia, at the foot of the Ponte dell’Aseo where the fondamenta (canalside walkway) joins the calle (street) of the same name, stretches Palazzo Gheltoff — more precisely Loredan Gheltoff — a fine archiacuto (Venetian Gothic) facade between the 14th and 15th centuries.
- Fondamenta degli Ormesini
The liveliest stretch of the longest bank in Venice — that succession of fondamenta (canalside walkways) that chases the rio (a Venetian canal) della Misericordia and changes name at every bridge — owes its name to the workshops of ormesin, the silk fabric that originally arrived from Ormus, on the Indian Ocean, and was then woven here.
- Ponte della Malvasia
A stone and brick bridge over the rio della Sensa (a Venetian canal), in the northernmost part of Cannaregio, on the water road leading towards Sant’Alvise: the iron bands rest on little columns of Istrian stone, and it connects the Fondamenta de la Sensa to the Calle de la Malvasia, in a corner where the city still looked out on the open lagoon: from here the rio continues under the Turlona bridge as far as the Sacca della Misericordia, the basin opening onto the northern lagoon.
- Calle del Capitello
A calle (a narrow Venetian street) in the northernmost part of Cannaregio, between the Ponte di Sant’Alvise and the fondamenta degli Ormesini and della Malvasia (a fondamenta is a canalside quay), in an area that for centuries remained on the edge of the city, looking out over the open lagoon towards the mainland.
- Church of Sant'Alvise
One of the loneliest and most evocative churches in Venice, at the northernmost tip of Cannaregio, on a campo (a square) where grass still grows and everything has a rustic, country air — and the old place-name of the Secchere recalls when these grounds were barene, low marshy banks covered by water at every flood tide and dry at the ebb. Tradition has it built in 1388 by the noblewoman Antonia Venier, to whom St Louis, bishop of Toulouse — Sant’Alvise in Venetian — appeared in a dream and showed her the place; but the monastery was perhaps even older, recorded as ’de novo fundatum’ already in the register of Bishop Ramperto Polo at the beginning of the 14th century.
- Fondamenta dei Riformati
This fondamenta (canalside walkway) in Cannaregio has a double name — dei Riformati or del Bersaglio — telling of its two souls: the Franciscan friars of the strictest observance, called the Riformati, who founded the convent and church of San Bonaventura here, and the public target range where, from the 16th century on, Venetians practised firing bombards.
- Portale di Palazzo Dona'
At number 3150 on the Fondamenta dei Riformati, overlooking the rio di Sant’Alvise, a Renaissance portal from the early 16th century still stands.
- Ponte di San Bonaventura
The Ponte di San Bonaventura, in stone with plastered brick balustrades, crosses the rio dei Riformati (a Venetian canal) between the Calle (street) and the Fondamenta (canalside walkway) of the same name, at Sant’Alvise in Cannaregio.
- Fondamenta della Sensa
One of the northernmost banks of Cannaregio, between Sant’Alvise and the Misericordia, facing the rio of the same name: simple houses, boats and a silence that seems far from the Venice of the crowds.
- Palazzo Michiel
On the Fondamenta della Sensa (a canalside walkway), where Cannaregio opens towards the western lagoon, Palazzo Michiel at no. 2318 is a graceful Lombardesque building from the early 16th century, perhaps designed by Giovanni Buora.
- Calle Turloni
Calle Turloni, between the Ponte Turlona on the Rio della Sensa - a structure of wood and stone, a rare wooden bridge surviving in the city, ’Turloni’ in the new street directory but still ’Turlona’ on the old nizioleto - and the Fondamenta degli Ormesini, recalls the citizen family of the Turloni: come from the Bergamo region and enriched by the wool trade, they owned here, in the parish of Santi Ermagora e Fortunato - the future San Marcuola - a whole ruga (row) of twenty-four houses, practically the entire calle, a stone’s throw from the fondamenta of the Ghetto Novo.
- Ponte della Torretta
The Ponte de le Torete — Ponte della Torretta in standard Italian — spans the small rio (a Venetian canal) of the same name in Cannaregio, joining the fondamenta de le Capuzine (a canalside walkway) to the fondamenta dei Ormesini, at the western edge of the sestiere (district; Venice has six).
- Palazzo Grimani alle Cappuccine
Where Cannaregio ends and the open lagoon begins, on the last fondamenta (canalside walkway) before the water, stands a small palazzo of the late 16th century bearing a weighty name: Grimani.
- Chiesa delle Cappuccine
On the last strip of Cannaregio, where the fondamenta looks out over the open lagoon, stands one of the smallest and most northerly churches in Venice: the Cappuccine, put up between 1614 and 1623 for a convent of Capuchin nuns whose vegetable garden reached down to the water.
- Church of San Gerolamo
When this church was built in 1375, the contract contained a curious clause: the monastery had to give the bishop of Castello every year a pound of incense, two oranges and two flasks of wine.
- Baia del Re
You have reached the westernmost tip of Venice: you can go no further, the city ends and the water begins.
- Ponte di Ghetto Nuovo
The Ponte de Gheto Novo links the Fondamenta degli Ormesini with the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, crossing the rio (a Venetian canal) de San Girolamo.
- Campo di Ghetto Nuovo
In Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, the façades press close around a small square.
- The Jewish Ghetto of Venice
Among the calli (narrow Venetian streets) of Cannaregio lies the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, the city’s historic Jewish quarter.
- Ponte di Ghetto Vecchio
The Ponte di Ghetto Vecchio, with its diagonal iron cross-bracing, crosses the rio del Ghetto and links the two campi.
- The Synagogues of the Ghetto
The ’schole’ are the Jewish temples of the Ghetto — five synagogues, one for each community that lived here between 1516 and 1797: Ashkenazi, Italian and Sephardi, the last in turn divided between the Natione Levantina (Turkey and the Greek islands) and the Natione Ponentina (Spain and Portugal).
- Fondamenta di Cannaregio
The fondamenta (a canalside walkway) that gives its name—or rather takes it from the district—runs along the Cannaregio Canal, the city’s “second” waterway, from the Ponte delle Guglie to the Ghetto.
- Rio Terrà San Leonardo
Cannaregio’s liveliest, most commercial street — with market stalls, greengrocers and a fish market — is actually a filled-in canal.
- Calle del Cristo
Here, in Cannaregio, between Rio Terà San Leonardo and Rio Terà del Cristo (rio terà means a filled-in canal, now a street), the name of Christ appears three times: in this calle (street), in the filled-in canal, and in the nearby Piscina del Cristo.
- Scuola del Cristo
Hidden in a calle (Venetian lane) behind San Marcuola, the Scuola del Cristo is one of Venice’s most secret and best-preserved small confraternity halls.
- Rio Terrà Dietro la Chiesa
The Rio Terà drio la Chiesa, in Cannaregio, owes its telling name to its geography: here flowed the rio dei Do Ponti, also called rio del Cristo, which curved right ’drio’ — behind — the apse of San Marcuola, the church of Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus.
- Campo San Marcuola
Campo San Marcuola is Cannaregio’s drawing room on the Grand Canal: this campo (Venetian square) runs right down to the water, with a handsome 1713 wellhead at its centre and a landing stage for vaporetti and gondolas.
- Chiesa di San Marcuola
Opposite the Fondaco dei Turchi, San Marcuola overlooks the Grand Canal with a bare-brick facade that has been awaiting its marble for three centuries: Giorgio Massari rebuilt the church from 1728 and finished the interior, but the cladding never arrived.