A walk with 65 stops, from St Mark's Square to Bacino Orseolo.
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.
- Procuratie di San Marco
On three sides of St Mark’s Square runs the continuous rhythm of the Procuratie, the residences of the Procurators of St Mark - the Republic’s highest magistracy after the Doge, nine men divided into three offices: de supra, de citra and de ultra.
- Ponte dei Dai
Beside Caffè Quadri opens a dark, narrow sotoportego (a covered passageway), some thirty metres in which the crowd of St Mark’s Square suddenly thins out: at the end, the first little bridge over the rio de le Procuratie is the Ponte dei Dai. A small stone bridge whose name has sparked centuries of disputes.
- Calle dei Fabbri
A calle (a narrow Venetian street) in the sestiere (district) of San Marco that links the area of the Square, through the Sotoportego dei Dai, with the Campo and the Ponte dei Dai, towards San Moisè.
- Campo San Gallo o Rusolo
Two minutes from St Mark’s Square, behind the Cavalletto, this little square has had three names over eight centuries: Rusolo - a corruption of Orseolo, after the hospice founded by Doge Pietro Orseolo I and moved here at the end of the 16th century to make way for the Procuratie Nuove (the Republic’s new government offices) - then San Gallo, after the little church left standing by the institution, and finally Canova, because the sculptor died here in 1822, in a house that no longer exists.
- The Oratorio di San Gallo
In a corner of Campo San Gallo (a Venetian square, or campo), once Campo Rusolo, one of Venice’s smallest sacred buildings survives among the 20th-century bank buildings.
- 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.
- Campo San Luca
Ask a Venetian where the centre of Venice is, and many will point here.
- Calle Memmo o Loredan
This calle connects the Salizzada San Luca to the Riva del Carbon, skirting the flank of a special palace: the one that since 1867 has been Venice’s City Hall, Ca’ Loredan, connected to the nearby Ca’ Farsetti by the covered walkways that cross the street.
- Fondamenta del Carbon
Between Ca’ Farsetti and Palazzo Bembo, this strip of bank on the Grand Canal was the petrol station of pre-industrial Venice: here the rafts loaded with coal moored, and here was sold the fuel that kept furnaces, kitchens and foundries alight.
- Palazzo Farsetti and Loredan (City Hall)
On the Riva del Carbon — so called from the coal vessels that used to moor here — two 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine palaces have housed Venice’s City Hall for a century and a half.
- Portal of Palazzo Magno (San Luca)
In the Campiello di San Luca, beside the church, survives the portal of the old Palazzo Magno: a triangular terracotta pediment, patere and a 13th-century coat of arms.
- The Church of San Luca
Halfway between San Marco and Rialto, looking out over the rio (a Venetian canal) that gives it water and the campiello (small square) that gives it air, San Luca is one of the oldest parishes in Venice: it was founded in the 11th century by the Dandolo and Pizzamano families, in Veneto-Byzantine form with three naves, at a strategic point in the city’s trade.
- Palazzo Grimani di San Luca
On the Grand Canal, not far from Rialto and at the corner of the rio di San Luca, rises the colossal bulk of Palazzo Grimani, a Renaissance masterpiece by the Veronese Michele Sanmicheli and today the seat of the Venice Court of Appeal.
- Palazzo Contarini (formerly Corner)
On the rio (a Venetian canal) di San Luca, a stone’s throw from its mouth into the Grand Canal, looks out one of the most elegant and least-watched palaces in San Marco: Palazzo Contarini a San Beneto, formerly of the Corner.
- Calle Sant'Andrea
Calle Sant’Andrea (a calle is a narrow Venetian street), a short distance from Campo San Beneto, owes its name to a hospice that the monks of Sant’Andrea del Lido, or della Certosa, owned here: a very old monastery, founded in 1199 on an islet near the Lido harbour and passed in 1424 from the Augustinians to the Carthusians.
- Salizzada del Teatro
Two names for one street: Venetians call it salizzada (one of the city’s first paved streets) della Chiesa or del Teatro, and they are never wrong.
- The Church of San Benedetto
In the silent Campo San Beneto, two steps from the Fortuny Museum, opens one of the oldest churches of San Marco.
- Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei (Palazzo Fortuny)
On Campo San Beneto (a campo is a Venetian square) dominates one of the largest Gothic constructions in Venice — Sansovino judged it ’worthy of the position of the Grand Canal’ — and one of the most harmonious not facing the canal: Palazzo Pesaro, commissioned by Benedetto Pesaro in the mid-15th century and called ’degli Orfei’ after the Accademia Filarmonica that had its seat here in the 18th century.
- Ponte Michiel
The Ponte Michiel, in stone with iron bands in sweeping flourishes, spans the rio de Ca’ Michiel (a small Venetian canal), linking Calle Pesaro (a calle is a Venetian lane) to Ramo Michiel, in the heart of San Marco.
- Corte dell'Albero
A stone’s throw from the Sant’Angelo landing, Corte dell’Albero is a quiet, irregular campiello (small square), enclosed on one side by a gentle giant: Casa Nardi, a huge 20th-century building in neo-Venetian-Byzantine style, with carved roundels and panels set into the brickwork.
- Palazzo Sandi-Porto
In the Corte dell’Albero, a stone’s throw from San Samuele and the Campiello del Teatro, there is a façade so sober you hardly notice it. Yet Palazzo Sandi-Porto, also called Cipollato, hides the second ceiling ever frescoed by Giambattista Tiepolo.
- Fondamenta Narisi
The Fondamenta Narisi is a quiet bank in the sestiere (district) of San Marco, in the parish of Sant’Angelo: it runs along the rio (a Venetian canal) that here takes the name Sant’Anzolo and, further west, Ca’ Garzoni, between the Ponte del Pestrin — the milk-seller’s bridge — and the courtyards rising towards Campo Santo Stefano.
- Ponte e Calle del Pestrin
An iron bridge joins the Calle del Pestrin to the Corte Lucatello, where the rio de Sant’Anzolo meets the rio de Ca’ Garzoni, behind Santo Stefano and San Samuele.
- Campiello Novo
Eight steps behind the apse of Santo Stefano, and you climb into another world: the Campiello Novo is a small raised, secluded space, set apart from the square from which it is only a few metres away.
- Piscina San Samuele
Between Campo Sant’Angelo and the Salizada di San Samuele (a salizada is one of the first paved streets of Venice) opens a small paved square with a curious name: Piscina San Samuele.
- Salizzada di San Samuele
’Salizada’, in Venice, is a mark of merit: it meant a paved street, one of the first, when the other calli were still beaten earth.
- The House of Paolo Veronese
On Salizzada di San Samuele, one of Venice’s early paved streets, at no. 3338, a small palazzo with a commemorative inscription marks the Venetian home of Paolo Veronese.
- Calle delle Carrozze
A calle of the sestiere of San Marco that opens onto the campo of San Samuele, on the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo Grassi
Between Campo San Samuele (a Venetian square) and the Grand Canal stands the last great patrician palace built before the fall of the Serenissima (the Republic of Venice): Palazzo Grassi, the massive Neoclassical pile that the extremely rich Bolognese Grassi family - who had come by way of Chioggia, where they lived from 1230, and were enrolled in the patriciate in 1718 after donating sixty thousand ducats for the Morea war - had Giorgio Massari erect in the mid-18th century: a monument to Venetian wealth in the Republic’s very sunset, built between 1748 and 1772 on the last great empty lot left on the waterway.
- Church of San Samuele
On the campo (square) that slopes down to the Grand Canal, next to Palazzo Grassi, this is one of the oldest churches in Venice: it was founded by the Boldù and Soranzo families around the year 1000 and was first dedicated to St Matthew.
- Palazzo Malipiero
They called it ’la Ca’ Granda de’ San Samuel’, the Big House, for its unusual size: Palazzo Malipiero is one of the oldest palaces on the Grand Canal, a palimpsest of almost a thousand years.
- Ca' del Duca
On the Grand Canal, next to the rio del Duca (a small canal), the base of a palace that was never finished tells the story of the most ambitious dream of the Venetian 15th century.
- Il Teatro di San Samuele
Between Campo San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano, the names of the calli tell of a theatre that is no more: Calle del Teatro, Ramo del Teatro, Fondamenta delle Scuole.
- Ponte Vitturi
A bridge of iron and stone over the rio di San Vidal, between the calle del Fruttariol and the campiello Loredan, in a corner of San Marco where the noise of Rialto and the Accademia arrives muffled.
- The Church of San Vitale
Cross Ponte Vitturi, where Girolamo Miani was born in 1481.
- Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti
At the foot of the Accademia Bridge, on the St Mark’s side, Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti flaunts one of the most showy Gothic façades on the Grand Canal — but it is a largely reinvented Middle Ages.
- Campo Santo Stefano and the Tommaseo Monument
Campo Santo Stefano — which the street signs call Campo Francesco Morosini — is one of the largest campi (squares) in Venice: a long L-shaped square that runs from the Gothic flank of the church of Santo Stefano to San Vidal and the Accademia Bridge.
- Benedetto Marcello Conservatory (Palazzo Pisani)
In the picturesque Campiello Pisani, a step from Campo Santo Stefano, rises the colossal façade of Palazzo Pisani, the largest patrician palace in Venice.
- Palazzo Loredan (Istituto Veneto)
At the southern end of Campo Santo Stefano, Palazzo Loredan has been the seat of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti since 1891.
- Palazzo Morosini
On Campo Santo Stefano, one of Venice’s largest drawing rooms, looks out a palace that is almost a monument to the family who lived there for two and a half centuries: Palazzo Morosini, today also called Morosini Gatterburg.
- Palazzo Barbaro a Santo Stefano
On the northern flank of Campo Santo Stefano, at number 2947 and hard against Palazzo Loredan — seat of the Istituto Veneto — stands the 16th-century Palazzo Barbaro.
- The Church of Santo Stefano and its Cloister
At the top of the great tree-lined campo (a Venetian square) of Santo Stefano rises one of the city’s three conventual churches, together with the Frari and Santi Giovanni e Paolo: it was founded by the Augustinian Hermits, who in 1274 sold their first convent of Sant’Anna in Castello to the Benedictine nuns and bought houses here in the centre of the city — the foundation stone was blessed on 7 June 1294 by the bishop of Castello, Querini — rebuilt it in the 14th century and in the 15th clothed it in the flamboyant Gothic that still gives it its face, including the conspicuously leaning bell tower.
- The Old Scuola di Santo Stefano (dei Laneri)
Opposite the side portal of the church of Santo Stefano, at number 3467 on the campo (square), juts the sober surviving façade of one of Venice’s oldest confraternities: the Scuola di Santo Stefano, founded in 1299.
- Cloister of the former Santo Stefano Convent
A courtyard of Ionic columns, a wellhead in the middle and, hung on the walls, the sarcophagi of a doge and a defeated tyrant: this is the heart of the ancient Augustinian convent, the complex the hermit friars built beside their church of Santo Stefano from the 13th century.
- Ponte dei Frati
The Ponte dei Frati crosses the rio di Sant’Anzolo (a small canal), between the campo (square) of Sant’Angelo and the gate of the former monastery of Santo Stefano, in San Marco.
- Campo Sant'Angelo and its Monumental Palaces
Stop in Campo Sant’Angelo, or Sant’Anzolo as the Venetians say. Today the space opens out among Gothic and 17th-century facades, two ancient wellheads and the little oratory on one side.
- Calle Caotorta
Few calli (Venetian lanes) in Venice bear so old a name.
- Ponte dei Calegheri
- Fondamenta, Ponte and Sottoportico San Cristoforo
Behind the Teatro La Fenice the rio della Verona curves narrowly between the walls, and here three pieces of the Venetian vocabulary line up: the fondamenta, the bridge and the sottoportego of San Cristoforo — the giant who carried the Child across the river and became the saint of wayfarers, natural patron of those who cross the water.
- Calle della Fenice
Calle della Fenice, a Venetian street, runs behind the Gran Teatro La Fenice opera house, between the sottoportico of the Malvasia Vecchia (a covered passageway) at San Fantin and the Ponte di San Cristoforo, on the edge of the rio delle Veste (a Venetian canal).
- Campiello Mario Marinoni
Behind the north side of the La Fenice opera house, a tiny paved square opens between Campo San Fantin and the rio della Verona (a Venetian canal).
- Campo San Fantin
Halfway between San Marco, the Rialto and the Accademia, Campo San Fantin is the theatrical heart of Venice: here the late-Renaissance church - which for centuries was also dedicated to Santa Maria delle Grazie - faces the colonnade of the Teatro La Fenice, and the pairing is no accident: for centuries people left this campo (Venetian square) in costume heading for the theatre and came back late at night.
- The Church of San Fantino
Campo San Fantin is one of the densest fulcrums of history in the city: on one side the neoclassical façade of the Teatro La Fenice, the temple of opera inaugurated in 1792 and twice risen from its own ashes; on the other the church of San Fantino, a thousand years old, rebuilt in the 16th century with ten thousand ducats left by Cardinal Zeno — and it was the Senate that saw to executing his will.
- La Fenice opera house
On Campo San Fantin (a campo is a Venetian square), sober among the houses, opens the Neoclassical façade of Venice’s most famous opera house: La Fenice, born in 1792 from a design by Giannantonio Selva for a society of box-holders that had lost its theatre — and chose the name of the bird that is reborn from its own ashes.
- The Ateneo Veneto
Campo San Fantin — a campo is a Venetian square — hosts a façade that looks like a church, but for centuries it was the seat of one of Venice’s most singular confraternities.
- Calle e Ponte della Verona
A few steps from the Teatro La Fenice, a stone bridge crosses the rio Menuo, also called the rio de la Verona: it is the Ponte de la Verona, and together with the calle it owes its name to an inn that had a season of glory here.
- Palazzo Mora al Ponte della Verona
At the end of the rio (a small canal) Menuo — which everyone here calls de la Verona — where the waterway meets the rio di San Luca, a quiet corner of the sestiere of San Marco (one of the city’s six districts) guards one of the most intact Gothic façades of the Venetian 15th century: Palazzo Mora, later owned by the Marcello.
- Calle degli Assassini
Between Campo Manin square and Campo San Fantin, a narrow, winding calle (street) slips through: Calle dei Assassini.
- Calle della Mandola
A much-frequented calle of the sestiere of San Marco, in the parish of San Benedetto, linking campo Sant’Angelo to campo Manin — and its width, unusual for a Venetian alley, is recent: part of the street was considerably widened in the 19th century.
- Ponte della Cortesia
The Ponte della Cortesia crosses the rio (Venetian canal) de San Luca, connecting the Calle de la Cortesia (a calle is a street) with Campo Manin (campo means square), which back then was called Campo San Paterniano, after the parish church later demolished.
- Campo Manin and the Monument to Daniele Manin
For Venice, this campo (square) has an almost too modern air — and indeed it is recent.
- Calle della Vida
Calle de la Vida, or de le Locande (a calle is a Venetian street), runs in the heart of San Marco between Campo Manin and the rio (a small canal) of San Luca, beside Palazzo Contarini dal Bovolo.
- Scala Contarini del Bovolo
In a hidden courtyard behind campo Manin, a Venetian square, Venice’s most celebrated outdoor staircase spirals upwards: a 26-metre cylindrical tower wrapped in a spiral of 80 steps — bovolo means ’snail’ in Venetian.
- 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.