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From the A*List Deals Weekly Newsletter
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Venice Waterfront Walking Tour
Excerpt from National Geographic Traveler: Venice guidebook
Text by Erla Zwingle Photo by Ken Kochey
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The Church of Santa Maria della Salute is built on more than a million pilings.
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The Riva degli Schiavoni (Slavs) is one of Venice's most beautiful promenades—or would be, if it were not now so cluttered with trinket hawkers, taxi stands, and waterbus stops. Stretching from the Ponte della Paglia nearly to the Arsenale, it was enlarged on landfill several times beginning in the ninth century, using mud dredged from the Grand Canal. It was the customary landing place for ships belonging to Dalmatian merchants, who imported cured fish and meat.
*Bolded names and numbers in the text below correspond with our map of this walking tour.
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Begin at the Palazzo Ducale, facing the Bacino di San Marco, and begin walking left toward the Arsenale, with the water on your right. Cross the Ponte della Paglia, so named because straw used to be unloaded along the shore here. Pause at the top and look left: You will see the Ponte dei Sospiri (1) (Bridge of Sighs) suspended over the canal, linking the Palazzo Ducale and the Prisons. This very poignant name was a late Victorian invention, intended to evoke the sadness of condemned criminals crossing the bridge with a heavy heart to begin their terms of imprisonment.
On your left are the Palazzo delle Prigioni (New Prisons). On a more cheerful note, the next building is now one of Venice's most luxurious hotels, the Danieli (2). The bland white annex was built in the late 1950s on land where construction of houses taller than one story had been forbidden for centuries, as it had been the site of the assassination of Doge Vitale Michiel II (1172).
Cross the next bridge; you're now facing an agglomeration of huge bronze statues in the middle of the street, topped by an equestrian hero: This is the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II, the first king of a unified Italy. It is an elaborate homage to Italy's newfound independence, sculpted by Ettore Ferrari (1887) and typical of the grandiose style of its era, but totally out of tune with the more subdued grandeur of Gothic Venice. The church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, better known as La Pietà (3) (Riva degli Schiavoni, tel +39 (0)41 523 1096, open only for concerts & Mass; vaporetto 1, 51, 52 to San Zaccaria), is more simply called Vivaldi's Church. It was here that Antonio Vivaldi (1677-1741), the master of 17th-century Venetian music, composed many of his masterpieces, which were performed by the young women of the adjoining orphanage and hospice. Over the main doorway outside is a simple but very moving 19th-century relief of "Charity" by E. Marsili that shows the Madonna holding the infant Jesus on her lap; instead of the usual formal pose, the baby here has turned around and thrown his arms spontaneously around his mother's neck. On the outside right wall of the church, down the Calle della Pietà, is a square, dark brown tablet. The inscription (1548) threatens everything from "thunderbolts of God" to excommunication to anyone who, "having the means to care for them," might think of shuffling off their illegitimate children into the care of the hospice.
Keep going along the Calle della Pietà to the end; take a left, then a right, and go straight along Calle Bosello until you reach a broad street called the Salizzada dei Greci. Turn right here and wander along this hidden neighborhood artery, lined with useful stores selling fresh meat, pasta, housewares, and plumbing supplies. You'll come to a bridge, which you should cross and immediately turn left onto the Fondamenta dei Furlani. At the end of this small stretch you will come to the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (4).
From the scuola, walk back along the Fondamenta dei Furlani to the end, where it joins the broad street, Salizzada Sant' Antonino, onto which you turn left. The large white church of Sant' Antonino is closed for extensive restoration and looks rather derelict. Follow the Salizzada Sant' Antonino to the end and turn right. You will arrive in a spacious campo with two names: Campo Bandiera e Moro, or more commonly San Giovanni in Bragora. The first name refers to three Venetian martyrs of the uprising against the Austrians in 1844, the second refers to the church of San Giovanni in Bragora (5) (Campo Bandiera e Moro, tel +39 (0)41 520 5906; vaporetto 1, 82, 51, 52 to San Zaccaria, 1 to Arsenale), which may have been founded as early as the eighth century. It was completely rebuilt in 1475 by Mauro Codussi, who bridged the Gothic and the Renaissance. One of the church's many treasures is the "Baptism of Christ," by Cima da Conegliano (1492-95), who added one of his typically enchanting Veneto landscapes as the background. Recent work has restored the marble to its earlier brightness; look closely at the left wall of the apse surrounding the main altar: The black rectangle that you will see on the narrow carved trim was left to indicate how severely the centuries of candle smoke had stained the stone.
The font in which composer Antonio Vivaldi was baptized is in the alcove in the left aisle with a copy of his baptismal certificate.
As you come out of the church, cross the campo and take the narrow street to the left, the Calle del Dose (Venetian dialect for "doge"). When you reach the Riva degli Schiavoni, pause for a moment and try to imagine the scene, in 1819, when an elephant escaped from its cage here. Fleeing the rifle shots of its pursuers, it took refuge in the nearby church of Sant' Antonino. The elephant was finally felled by a cannon blast from the artillery corps.
From the Riva degli Schiavoni, turn left and continue to the next bridge, which you cross. The building immediately on your left is known as the Ca' di Dio (6), or "house of God," as pilgrims' hostels were called during the Middle Ages. There had been a hospice here since 1272; ancient documents also record that in 1360 several friars from Genoa stayed here while on assignment to blow up the Arsenale (they failed). Today it is a private nursing home for the elderly.
Turn left up the next street, the Calle dei Forni (Street of Bakeries). The large building on your right was once the bakery for the Arsenale, and provided bread for the Venetian sailors; it is now used by the navy as offices. At the next corner, turn left onto the Calle di Fondamenta Pegola, and take your next right onto the Fondamenta Pegola. At the next corner on your right is the church of San Martino (7) (Campo San Martino, tel +39 (0)41 523 0487; vaporetto 1 to Arsenale).
This church is dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, who cut his cloak in half and gave it to a poor beggar (see the Gothic relief carved over the doorway on the church's right corner). The first church on the site was built in the seventh century, but the present structure is the result of several rebuildings, the latest by Jacopo Sansovino (1540). The house next door, facing the canal, was where the Armenian abbot, Mechitar de Sebaste, stayed in 1717 while establishing the monastery on the island of San Lazzaro.
Coming out of the church, turn right along the Fondamenta di Fronte and continue to Campo Arsenale, where you will find yourself in front of the Arsenale.
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