A wide, straight street is an unusual thing in Venice.
This section of the Casanova Walk, Walk No. 3 in San Marco, begins on one of the few the city has, and ends in a small square where a church gave up worship and took in violins instead. Between the two are a Baroque façade built as a family monument, a hotel with a literary reputation, and a gondola ferry ‘traghetto’ still doing ordinary work.
Calle Larga XXII Marzo
Calle Larga XXII Marzo was widened to its present form in 1880 and named for 22 March 1848, when the Venetian uprising drove the Austrian authorities from the city. A commemorative plaque above No. 2423 records the occasion. It is worth a glance upward, because very little else here asks you to look up.
This is a major shopping area, and the emphasis is on the higher-end consumer – fashion houses and designer labels, one after another. The walking is easy and the window-shopping is expensive.
Follow Calle Larga XXII Marzo for 90 metres, where it turns left and becomes Calle de le Ostreghe. In 20 metres, go over the bridge and continue along Calle de le Ostreghe until you reach Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo o del Giglio.
Santa Maria del Giglio
Another ornate Baroque façade waits in the campo: Santa Maria del Giglio, POI #8. It is styled much like San Moisè, seen earlier in this walk, and it serves a similar purpose. This one commemorates the Barbaro family.
The statues along the bottom are young members of the family, including the brothers of Antonio: Giovanni, Marino, Francesco and Carlo. Antonio himself stands in the middle of the second level, depicted as the Superintendent of Dalmatia.
The façade tells a story if you read it from the bottom up. The reliefs above the base columns show a naval battle, galleons and prisons. On the plinths beneath those columns are plans of cities where Antonio Barbaro and members of his family served the Republic: Zadar, Iraklion, Padua, Rome, Corfu and Split. A family record, carved in stone, at street level, in a public square. Modesty was not the point.
Inside there is a great deal to see: a substantial collection of crucifixes and silver liturgical objects, a Rubens Virgin and Child with the Infant St John, and Tintoretto’s Four Evangelists of 1557. There are more works than can usefully be listed here. The Chorus Venezia page for the church is the place to go for the full account.
The Gritti and the traghetto
Come out of the front entrance of the church, turn right, and continue south along Campiello del Traghetto. This short detour reaches The Gritti, POI #5, and the view across the Grand Canal at POI #6.
The Gritti was another of Hemingway’s favourites, which makes two on this walk – Harry’s Bar, at the start, was the first. Whether that says more about the writer or about the walk is left to you.
The traghetto here is worth waiting for. It is a gondola ferry, crossing the Grand Canal at a fixed point, with passengers traditionally standing. It is not a performance. It is transport.
This is also the free version of a view the walk offers twice. Earlier, at POI #4, there is a diversion to Gio’s at The St. Regis for the vista towards the Salute. If the budget is tight, this campiello gives you the Grand Canal for nothing.
Over Ponte Zaguri
Backtrack to Campo Zobenigo and turn left at the church, crossing the right-hand bridge into the tiny Campiello de la Feltrina. Thirty metres further along, cross Ponte Zaguri, and you arrive in Campo San Maurizio.
Before you leave the bridge, turn and look back. Palazzo Zaguri stands at No. 2631 on Fondamenta Zaguri, POI #16 of the Three-Campo Walk in The Fabric of Venice. The building now serves as an exhibition space, and its façade is best seen from here, across the water, rather than from the campo you are about to enter.
Campo San Maurizio and the Museum of Music
This is the smallest campo in this part of the city, and it is easy to walk straight through it. A pause repays the effort.
The church of San Maurizio, POI #10 on this walk and POI #17 in The Fabric of Venice, has a history reaching back to at least 1084. What you see is much later. The present neoclassical church emerged from a rebuilding begun in 1806, associated with Pietro Zaguri and the architect Giannantonio Selva, and although it was formally consecrated in 1828, it never returned to full parish use after the Napoleonic suppressions.
The deconsecrated building now houses the Music Museum of Venice, a collection of violins, mandolins, lyres and other stringed instruments. For anyone with an interest in music history, it is the reason to stop here.
An earlier bell tower once stood in the campo. It was demolished to make space for Palazzo Bellavite-Terzi at No. 2760, POI #18, built in the sixteenth century by the flour and oil merchant Dionisio Bellavite. The façade was originally decorated with frescoes by Paolo Veronese, long since gone. Later residents included the poet Giorgio Baffo and the novelist Alessandro Manzoni.
Right next door, on the left, is Palazzo Molin, POI #19.
Two more things before you go. Looking back towards Calle Zaguri, the western façade of Palazzo Zaguri comes into view, the other side of the building you studied from the bridge. And the wellhead in the campo, POI #20, is dated 1521.
A small square, a church that changed its mind, two palazzi and a well. That is a fair return for a place most people cross in thirty seconds.
Walking context
This article covers the middle section of Walk No. 3, the Casanova Walk in San Marco.
The full walk begins at Harry’s Bar, POI #1, at the back of the San Marco Vallaresso vaporetto stop at the mouth of the Grand Canal. It passes the Hotel Monaco at No. 1332, POI #2, which was the city’s first casino when it opened in 1638, then the Baroque façade of San Moisè, then the diversion to Gio’s at The St. Regis, POI #4, before joining Calle Larga XXII Marzo where this section begins.
From Campo San Maurizio, the route exits to the left of the church along Calle del Piovan and Calle del Spezier, reaching Campo Santo Stefano in 60 metres. There it picks up the statue of Niccolò Tommaseo at POI #12 and the Istituto Veneto di Scienze at POI #13, then continues to the Ponte dell’Accademia, Casanova’s birthplace near Calle Malipiero, San Samuele and Palazzo Grassi, before returning to Campo Santo Stefano and the church of Santo Stefano at the close.
Campo Santo Stefano is also where the neighbouring walk starts. The Manin Walk, Walk No. 2, begins there, and the two can be joined if you have the legs for it. The Three-Campo Walk in The Fabric of Venice covers the same ground from the other direction, arriving at Calle Zaguri from Campiello dei Calegheri by way of Ponte de la Malvasia Vecchia, named for the Malvasia wine trade from the Eastern Mediterranean once sold in the shops nearby.
The full route can be followed on the San Marco walking map.
Practical visitor notes
Calle Larga XXII Marzo is one of the busier thoroughfares in San Marco. Early morning is the only time it feels like a street rather than a shopping centre.
Opening hours and admission for Santa Maria del Giglio and the Music Museum are not given in the source books, so check before you plan around them. The Chorus Venezia page for Santa Maria del Giglio is the better guide to what is inside the church.
The Gritti is a working hotel and the campiello beside it is a working mooring. The view is free and public; the terrace is not. Stand clear of the traghetto landing while gondoliers are loading.
Campo San Maurizio is small and largely residential, and Palazzo Bellavite-Terzi and Palazzo Molin are private buildings. Look, by all means. Linger quietly.
Continue exploring
This San Marco slice is one part of the wider Casanova Walk. Continue with the full route in 17 Walks in Venice, which carries on from Campo San Maurizio to Campo Santo Stefano, the Accademia bridge and San Samuele.
The neighbouring Manin Walk, Walk No. 2, begins in Campo Santo Stefano and heads into the central campi of San Marco, so the two fit together neatly if you want a longer day.
For the Three-Campo Walk, which circles Campo Santo Stefano, Campo Sant’Anzolo and Campo San Maurizio, and for more on how Venetian squares, palazzi and wellheads work together, see The Fabric of Venice.