A walk with 80 stops, from St Mark's Square to Chiesa del Nome di Gesù a Santa Chiara.
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.
- Merceria dell'Orologio
The last stretch of the Marzaria — the commercial spine linking Rialto and St Mark’s — is the Merceria dell’Orologio.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Strada Nova
In Venice there is an anomaly: a street ten metres wide, almost straight, crowded at every hour, cutting through Cannaregio from Santa Lucia station to Rialto.
- Chiesa dell'Angelo Custode
At the beginning of the Strada Nova, in Campo Santi Apostoli, the sober Istrian-stone façade of the Scuola dell’Angelo Custode hides a double story: the confraternity of the Suffragio dell’Angelo, founded in 1577, obtained the plot on the rio and in 1713 had its seat built to a design by Andrea Tirali; two centuries later the building was bought by the merchants of the nearby Fondaco dei Tedeschi and since 27 May 1813 has housed Venice’s Evangelical Lutheran church, the oldest Protestant community in Italy.
- Palazzo Michiel dalle Colonne
On the Grand Canal, facing the Rialto Pescheria (the fish market), Palazzo Michiel dalle Colonne guards eight centuries of Venetian history: born in the 13th century as a Veneto-Byzantine residence of the Grimani, it preserves the 14th-century portico that gave it its name, while the Baroque façade with serliane (three-part windows) and stone busts is the work of Antonio Gaspari, finished in 1697 for the Zen. It hosted the last Duke of Mantua in exile and passing sovereigns; in its rooms a celebrated picture gallery was admired — from Bonifazio to Parmigianino, from Gherardo delle Notti to Schiavone — a magnificent Florentine mosaic table inlaid with hardstones and mother-of-pearl, and even the wardrobe with the vestments of the blessed Gregorio Barbarigo.
- Campo Santa Sofia
Campo Santa Sofia is one of the very few campi (squares) in Venice that open directly onto the Grand Canal: a bank open to the water right opposite the Rialto market, at the point where the frenetic Strada Nova meets the canal.
- Palazzo Sagredo
Facing Ca’ d’Oro, opposite Campo Santa Sofia, Palazzo Sagredo — today Ca’ Sagredo, formerly of the Morosini family and bought by the Sagredo in the early 16th century, the dynasty that also gave the Republic a doge, Nicolò — preserves on the Grand Canal one of the richest surviving Gothic facades: late 14th century, with a broad central fenestration and traces of an even older Veneto-Byzantine building of the 13th century.
- Chiesetta di Santa Sofia
Set between the houses along the Strada Nova and almost entirely swallowed by them, the little church of Santa Sofia is one of the oldest in Venice: it was commissioned by the Gussoni family and Giorgio Tribuno — the old chronicles say it existed as early as 886 — and a document mentions it in 1020.
- Ca' d'Oro and the Giorgio Franchetti Gallery
On the Grand Canal, the Ca’ d’Oro looks like lace carved in stone.
- Ponte Nuovo di San Felice
A stone-and-brick bridge over the rio di San Felice (a rio is a small Venetian canal), between the head of the parish and Strada Nova — and it really is ’new’: it was erected in 1872, when the Via Vittorio Emanuele, today’s Strada Nova, was laid out. The rio it spans is a long serpent of water running from the Sacca della Misericordia down to the Grand Canal, where it debouches at Santa Sofia, the parish suppressed in 1810 and almost entirely absorbed by San Felice itself; going up it northwards you meet the Ponte Chiodo, the only bridge in Venice left without parapets, beside the Gothic Palazzo Priuli Scarpon.
- Ponte Nicolò Pasqualigo
The Ponte Nicolò Pasqualigo, in stone with curling iron bands, crosses the rio de Noal at Santa Fosca: the water descends from the Grand Canal between the Palazzetto Da Lezze and the Palazzo Gussoni Grimani, passes beneath the spans and skirts the Fondamenta de la Stua as far as the monumental bank of Palazzo Donà Giovanelli, in a stretch of Cannaregio still made entirely of patrician facades on the water.
- Palazzo Donà Giovannelli
At the crossing of two canals in Cannaregio, the rio (a small Venetian canal) di Noale and the rio di Santa Fosca, rises one of the largest late-Gothic palazzi in Venice: built at the end of the 15th century — and judged so similar to the Doge’s Palace that it was attributed to the same architect, perhaps Calendario, perhaps Basegio — it was given in 1538 to the Duke of Urbino, then passed to the Donà and, for debts, to the Giovannelli.
- Farmacia Ponci
On the Strada Nova, towards Santa Fosca, one shop window guards the oldest pharmacy interior left in Venice: the spezieria all’Ercole d’Oro (the Golden Hercules apothecary’s shop), already open in the 17th century and famous throughout the city for its Santa Fosca Pills, called ’del Piovan’, which remained on sale for almost three centuries.
- Campiello della Chiesa
Behind the apse of the church of Santa Fosca - beneath which flows, coming from the Grand Canal, the rio del Santissimo - hides a campiello that the name tells by itself: Campiello della Chiesa.
- Palazzo Vendramin (Santa Fosca)
From the Campiello della Chiesa di Santa Fosca, look across the rio to see the façade of Palazzo Vendramin: exposed brick and stone, in a Renaissance style spanning the 15th and 16th centuries, with a handsome central portal reflected in the water.
- Palazzo Correr
At numbers 2214–2217 on Strada Nova, where the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare meets the route towards Campo Santa Fosca, this Correr palazzo tells a story in two parts.
- Church of Santa Fosca
One of Venice’s oldest churches, it may have originated in the 10th century, around the cult of a martyr who came from Sabrata, in Tripolitania, by way of Torcello.
- Monument to Fra Paolo Sarpi
In the heart of the Strada Nova, Campo Santa Fosca (a Venetian square, or campo) is a crossroads where present-day Venice meets its legends.
- Ponte di Santa Fosca
The Ponte di Santa Fosca crosses the rio of the same name in Cannaregio, between the fondamenta Diedo and the church campo, along Strada Nova.
- Palazzo Diedo
On Fondamenta Diedo, a stone’s throw from the Ponte di Santa Fosca where the wars of fists between Venice’s factions were once fought, Palazzo Diedo is an elegant classicising building of the early 18th century, attributed to Andrea Tirali.
- Fondamenta Daniele Canal
A quiet fondamenta (canalside walkway) along the rio dei Servi (a small canal), with an iron parapet on stone pillars and three little landing steps: it owes its name not to a doge nor an admiral, but to a priest — Monsignor Daniele Canal, who on the island of the great destroyed church of the Servi di Maria built one of the most original charitable institutions of 19th-century Venice.
- 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.
- Fondamenta Grimani
A few steps of water and stone, but a name with weight: this fondamenta (canalside walkway) on the rio del Grimani (a small canal), between Ponte Diedo and Ponte Moro, is the only place-name memory of a palazzo that no longer exists — the house of the Grimani dai Servi, with the façade painted by Giorgione, destroyed in the 19th century.
- Ponte Moro
The Ponte Moro crosses the riello dei Servi (a riello is a narrow canal) near campo San Marziale, in Cannaregio, a step from Palazzo Diedo.
- Chiesa di San Marziale
In the quiet campo of San Marziale, along the Fondamenta della Misericordia in Cannaregio, faces a very old church with a modest profile: founded, tradition says, on land already occupied by a squero (a small boatyard) — the Iconografia del Paganuzzi even dates it to 983, at the expense of the Bocchi family — and rebuilt by that same family in 1133, when it became a parish church, it was a three-nave basilica as the De Barbari map portrays it. Rebuilt in 1693 by the parish priest Giuseppe Pasquini and reconsecrated in 1721 by Patriarch Barbarigo, it shrank the plan to a single Baroque nave, with the flank dropping sheer to the canal and a simple bell gable.
- Ponte Zancani
The Ponte Zancani, in stone with brick bands, spans the rio del Trapolin between Calle Zancani and Campo San Marziale, in Cannaregio, in a maze of narrow calli between Strada Nova and the Fondamenta della Misericordia.
- Campo della Maddalena
Stop in Campo della Maddalena and watch how the city’s landscape changes just a few steps from the Strada Nova.
- Church of the Maddalena
A perfect circle planted in the middle of Cannaregio: the Maddalena is the only Venetian church with a circular plan, together with San Simeon Piccolo — and no coincidence, since its architect Tommaso Temanza was the nephew and pupil of Scalfarotto, who designed the other one. Rebuilt between 1763 and 1790 on the site of a 13th-century church of the Baffo family, which the parish priest Riccardi had renovated one last time in 1701 — to a more restrained design, after the first drawings were rejected as too bulky, and rotated ninety degrees so that the pronaos would face the campo — it was the last church built under the Serenissima: seven years later, the Republic was gone.
- Portal of Palazzo Magno
At the far end of Campo della Maddalena (a Venetian square), one of Cannaregio’s most distinctive, stands a pointed-arch portal — all that can be seen from here of Palazzo Magno, a 15th-century home of one of the oldest families in the Venetian patriciate.
- Rio Terrà della Maddalena
You are walking along one of Cannaregio’s busiest thoroughfares, among shops and the sounds of the market.
- Palazzo Donà dalle Rose
On the Rio Terrà della Maddalena — a rio terrà, a street created by filling in a canal, and perhaps the first in Venice, as early as 1398 — stands at number 2343 the 17th-century Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, home of a branch of the patrician family that gave the Serenissima three doges — Francesco, Leonardo and Nicolò, all within a century, between 1545 and 1618.
- Palazzo Contin
On the Rio Terà della Maddalena (a filled-in canal, now a street), in the working heart of Cannaregio, Palazzo Contin is a large 15th-century late-Gothic building, with well-preserved pointed-arch façades and an interior altered over the centuries.
- Corte del Volto Santo
Along the Rio Terrà della Maddalena, just before the campo, an arch with a small stone relief opens the Corte del Volto Santo: one of those courtyards where an entire community left its signature.
- Palazzo Loredan-Vendramin-Calergi
On the right bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Loredan-Vendramin-Calergi is the triumphal epilogue of the Venetian Renaissance: commissioned by Andrea Loredan from Mauro Codussi and completed in 1509 by the Lombardo workshop, with a façade entirely faced in stone and two-light windows divided by columns.
- Campiello dell'Anconetta
You are in the Campiello dell’Anconeta, a small Venetian square that opens unexpectedly within the dense commercial fabric of the Strada Nuova, the main street running from Santa Lucia station towards Rialto.
- Rio Terrà San Leonardo
Cannaregio’s liveliest, most commercial street — with market stalls, greengrocers and a fish market — is actually a filled-in canal.
- Former Church of San Leonardo
On the lively Rio Terrà San Leonardo, the popular artery of Cannaregio, stands the sober façade of the former church of San Leonardo: one of the oldest parish churches in the city, mentioned as early as 1089 and founded according to tradition in 1025.
- Ponte delle Guglie
The Ponte delle Guglie, the Venetians’ ’Ponte di Cannaregio’, spans the Cannaregio Canal - the widest of the canals joining the Grand Canal to the lagoon, once an expanse of reed beds that gave the whole sestiere (district) its name - and is the first historic bridge met by those coming from the station towards Strada Nova and Rialto.
- Canale di Cannaregio
After the Grand Canal, Canale di Cannaregio is Venice’s widest and most important waterway: an 800-metre stretch linking the Grand Canal to the northern lagoon and cutting across the sestiere (one of Venice’s six districts) between the fondamenta (canalside walkways) of San Giobbe and Cannaregio.
- 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.
- Palazzo Nani
At number 1105 on the Fondamenta di Cannaregio, just beyond the Ponte delle Guglie, Palazzo Nani is a 16th-century residence remodelled in the 1580s to a design by Alessandro Vittoria, author of the celebrated stucco decoration of the portego.
- Palazzo Surian Bellotto
It is one of the grandest façades on the Cannaregio canal: four storeys all in living stone towering over the neighbouring small palazzi, at numbers 967-975 of the fondamenta.
- Palazzotto dei Valier
Just beyond the Ponte dei Tre Archi, at numbers 928–938 on the Fondamenta di Cannaregio, a low, simply designed 16th-century building is all that remains of the picturesque Palazzotto dei Valier.
- Palazzo Roma
At number 923 on the Fondamenta di Cannaregio, just a few steps from the Ponte dei Tre Archi, Venice’s only three-arched bridge, the plain façade of Palazzo Roma looks out over the canal.
- Church of Santa Maria delle Penitenti
At the far end of the Cannaregio fondamenta (canalside walkway), opposite San Giobbe, the church of Santa Maria delle Penitenti has remained as it was when the money ran out: bare, elegant all the same, the work of Giorgio Massari.
- Ponte dei Tre Archi
In the heart of Cannaregio, where the canal of the same name widens towards the lagoon, the Ponte dei Tre Archi stages a shape that was once common in Venice and today survives only here: three arches — two small lateral ones and a large central one — in brick and Istrian stone — and fifteen coats of arms of the Provveditori de Comun carved above the minor arches.
- Ponte de la Saponela
The Ponte de la Saponela crosses the rio di San Giobbe (a rio is a small canal) in the heart of the fondamenta of the same name, a step from Andrea Tirali’s Ponte dei Tre Archi (1688).
- Fondamenta San Giobbe
The waterfront along the final stretch of the Cannaregio Canal, towards the open lagoon, takes its name from the nearby church—which began centuries ago as a shelter for the poor, as the card for the neighbouring campo (square) explains.
- Campo San Giobbe
Campo San Giobbe is a secluded corner at the far north of Cannaregio, a short walk from the Tre Archi bridge and the open lagoon.
- Church of San Giobbe
At the westernmost edge of Cannaregio, on the campo (a Venetian square) known to Venetians as Sant’Agiopo, the church of San Giobbe is one of the great monuments of the Venetian Renaissance.
- Palazzo Testa
On the Fondamenta San Giobbe, where the Cannaregio canal widens towards the north, this small 15th-century pointed-arch palazzo is a miniature jewel: only two floors with a mezzanine, but a piano nobile dense with trilobed openings enclosed in marble framing, and at the centre a quadrifora with balcony that is a small treatise on Venetian sculpture — corbels with lion protomes, a balustrade of little columns, two marzocchi (heraldic lions of St Mark) on the edges and three pine cones on the jambs, while four dripstones with small women’s heads protrude beneath the mezzanine windowsills.
- Palazzo Savorgnan
Stop on the bank of the Cannaregio Canal: the great white mass mirrored in the water, beside the more compact Palazzo Venier Manfrin, is Palazzo Savorgnan — one of the largest palaces in the sestiere (district).
- Palazzo Venier
On the Fondamenta Venier (a fondamenta is a canalside walkway), to the left of the colossal bulk of Palazzo Savorgnan, stretches an Istrian-stone facade so clean and squared as to seem almost modern: it is Palazzo Venier-Manfrin, formerly of the Priuli, rebuilt between 1734 and 1737 to a design by Andrea Tirali.
- Palazzo Labia
At the mouth of the Cannaregio Canal, beside the church of San Geremia, the colossal Baroque mass of Palazzo Labia - the last of the great palaces built in Venice - is the summit of 18th-century ostentation: the house that a Catalan family of immensely rich merchants - deserving citizens for two centuries, admitted to the patriciate in 1646 with three hundred thousand ducats offered for the war of Candia - built to prove it had arrived.
- Campo San Geremia
The first campo that meets those who arrive in Venice from the station — and one of the most surprising, because in Cannaregio big things mix with everyday ones without ceremony.
- Church of San Geremia
At the confluence of the Cannaregio canal and the Grand Canal, San Geremia is today the Sanctuary of Santa Lucia: in the apse chapel — dismantled piece by piece from the Palladian church demolished in 1861 to make room for the station — rests the martyr of Syracuse, who arrived in Venice with the spoils of the Fourth Crusade.
- Lista di Spagna
For millions of visitors, this is the first Venice they encounter: a long, crowded street running from Campo San Geremia (a Venetian square) towards the Ponte degli Scalzi, lined with shops, hotels and shop windows.
- Portale di Palazzo Morosini dalla Tressa
On the Lista di Spagna, at number 233, a 15th-century Gothic portal outlives the palace it guarded: it was the secondary entrance of the famous Palazzo Morosini ’dalla Tressa’, whose real façade — entirely frescoed by Pordenone — faced the Grand Canal, behind a courtyard enclosed by a wall that Martinioni counted among the most notable palaces in the city.
- Palazzo Zeno (Istituto Manin)
At number 168 of the Rio Terà Lista di Spagna (a rio terà is a filled-in canal, now a street) opens the great portal of Palazzo Zeno, today seat of the Istituto Manin.
- Palazzetto Lezze
Among the shop windows and stores of the Lista di Spagna, at number 134, a small 15th-century Gothic palace survives: it is the Palazzetto Lezze, with its pointed arches and elegant coat of arms topped by a crest.
- Palazzo Calbo Crotta
At the mouth of the Lista di Spagna, hard by the Ponte degli Scalzi, stretches one of the longest palaces on the Grand Canal: built by the Soranzo in the 14th-15th centuries, enlarged and remodelled up to the 17th century, it bears a façade divided into two souls — Gothic on the left, Renaissance on the right.
- Church of the Scalzi
Next to the station and the bridge over the Grand Canal rises one of the most opulent Baroque churches in Venice: Santa Maria di Nazareth, known as degli Scalzi, from the Discalced (’barefoot’) Carmelite friars who commissioned it. Having arrived in the city in 1633 and owners of this vast area since 1646, the friars began the temple around 1660 to a design by Baldassare Longhena, the great architect of Santa Maria della Salute, with funds from Count Gerolamo Cavazza; the church was completed in 1689 and consecrated in 1705.
- Ponte degli Scalzi
The Ponte degli Scalzi is Venice’s first bridge for almost everyone who arrives by train: you come out of Santa Lucia station, go down the steps, and this single white Istrian stone arch is the gateway onto the Grand Canal towards the ’lower’ half of the city.
- Church of San Felice
Straddling the Strada Nova, between the campo (square) and the rio (a small canal) of the same name, San Felice is one of the oldest churches in Cannaregio: founded around 960 by the Gallina family — an ancient and wealthy line, extinct for centuries — and dedicated to St Felix, priest of Nola, it was entirely rebuilt from 1531 in Codussi-style Greek-cross forms and reconsecrated in 1624 by the patriarch Tiepolo, with two façades and a portal commissioned by Girolamo Priuli ’dalle Porte’.
- Chiesa del Nome di Gesù a Santa Chiara
Two steps from Piazzale Roma, protected by a high boundary wall, this is one of the very few Venetian churches built in the 19th century: a small neoclassical temple erected between 1815 and 1834 to a design by Giannantonio Selva, the architect of the Fenice, and completed by his pupil Antonio Diedo: the solemn consecration came on 12 October 1834, after twenty-four years of building works.