Some walks are best taken backwards.

This short section of the Turchi Walk, Walk No. 8 in Santa Croce, runs against the direction printed in the book. It begins at Palazzo Mocenigo on Salizada San Stae and works south to Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini, finishing at the bridge in the campo’s eastern corner.

Five points of interest, a few hundred metres, and one of the more rewarding campi in the sestiere. The order is reversed. The city is not.

Palazzo Mocenigo

Start at Palazzo Mocenigo, POI #11.

The palazzo opened to the public in 1985 as the seat of the Study Centre of the History of Textiles, Costumes and Perfume. It holds the collections of ancient fabrics and clothing belonging to the Venice Civic Museums, most of which came from the Correr, Guggenheim, Cini and Grassi collections. There is also a library given over to the history of fabrics, costumes and fashion.

The building was completely renovated and expanded at the end of 2013. Twenty rooms on the first floor are now open, double the exhibition area of 1985. The displays evoke the life and activities of a Venetian nobleman between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Before you move on, look to the left, just past the entrance at No. 1920. The remains of a thirteenth-century house survive there: a row of Gothic windows and a fifteenth-century brick doorway arch.

It is a useful thing to see first. The palazzo behind you is a museum of what Venice wore. The wall beside you is a fragment of what Venice was, left in place and built around.

Santa Maria Mater Domini

From Palazzo Mocenigo, leave Salizada San Stae by the calle heading south. Cross one bridge, then the next. The church stands about ninety metres along, on Calle de la Chiesa.

This is Santa Maria Mater Domini, POI #10.

Tradition dates the first church here to 960. The present Renaissance building replaced the medieval church in the early sixteenth century and was consecrated in 1540. The interior is relatively plain, which turns out to be an advantage: there is little to distract from the two works worth the stop.

Tintoretto’s Finding of the True Cross, painted around 1561–62, and Vincenzo Catena’s Martyrdom of Saint Christina, from 1520.

Note the crossroad of Calle de la Chiesa as you pass. On the published route, walkers return to this junction. Going the other way, you meet it before the campo rather than after it.

Palazzetto Viaro-Zane

Continue past the crossroad for another twenty-five metres and the calle opens into Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini.

Stop as you enter. The palazzi around this campo are the reason to come: a working collection of Venetian-Byzantine and Gothic architecture, standing in ordinary use rather than behind a ticket desk.

On the northwestern side is Palazzetto Viaro-Zane at No. 2123, POI #8. Look at the first-floor windows. The decorative work there uses marble inlay and paterae, and it is easy to miss from the middle of the campo. Stand back against the opposite side and let the light do the work.

Paterae are worth understanding before you go further, because you will now see them everywhere. They are carved discs, usually cut from a slice of a disused marble column and set into a wall as decoration. Recycling, done seven centuries before the word became fashionable.

Casa Zane

Turn to the south side of the campo. At No. 2172 stands Casa Zane, POI #7, in the thirteenth-century style.

Here the detail is not subtle once you have found it. Crosses are set into the brick, along with paterae arranged around the pointed arch windows. The façade has been patched, altered and lived in for centuries, and the ornament has simply stayed where it was put.

A wellhead stands in the open ground in front of it, carved and still fitted with its metal lid. It dates from the first half of the fifteenth century.

Wellheads are the quiet infrastructure of the Venetian campo. Water was drawn here daily for centuries, and the space around the well was where a neighbourhood met, queued, talked and argued. Some are modest. Some announce the wealth of a family nearby. This campo has the palazzi to match either reading.

Casa Barbaro and the bridge

Cross the campo to its eastern corner, near the bridge. At No. 2177 is the fourteenth-century Gothic Casa Barbaro, POI #6. Look for the pointed arches and, set into the façade, the Barbaro arms.

It sits directly in the sightline of Palazzo Moro on the far side of the canal, and obscures it. That is the arrangement, and there is no clever angle that undoes it. Venice does not always compose itself for the viewer.

Go up onto the bridge anyway. The canal gives you the one thing the campo cannot: distance, and a run of façades seen along their length rather than head-on.

The group continues across the water. Beyond Palazzo Moro stands Palazzo Manzoni, part of the same run of buildings and best seen from here rather than from inside the campo.

This is where the slice ends. A museum, a church, a campo of carved brick, and a bridge that exists mainly to let you look back at what you have just walked through.

Walking context

The Turchi Walk is Walk No. 8, one of two walks in Santa Croce. As published, it begins at the San Stae vaporetto stop with the church of San Stae, passes Ca’ Pesaro and the Venice International Gallery of Modern Art, and reaches the fourteenth-century Palazzo Agnusdio before threading the Tiozzi calli toward Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini. The campo is a diversion from the main line of the route.

From Palazzo Mocenigo, the published route continues southwest into Calle del Tentor, over the bridge and across Ponte del Megio, then north along Fondamenta del Megio to Palazzo Stazio Priuli and the Natural History Museum in the former Fondaco dei Turchi. It ends at Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio.

Walked in this reversed order, that sequence runs the other way. Finishing at the campo leaves you close to Palazzo Agnusdio, Ca’ Pesaro and the San Stae vaporetto stop.

The walk combines well with its neighbours. The Tolentino Walk, No. 7, is the other Santa Croce walk and connects by vaporetto between Riva de Biasio and San Stae. The San Polo Walk, No. 6, begins a short distance from Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio. The Pescaria Walk, No. 4, also pairs well with this route.

The full route can be followed on the Santa Croce walking map.

Practical visitor notes

Palazzo Mocenigo is a museum with twenty rooms open on the first floor. Allow more time than the distance suggests. This slice is short enough that the museum, not the walking, will set your pace.

Santa Maria Mater Domini remains a Catholic church. Visit quietly, and check access before assuming it will be open.

The campo is residential. The buildings named here are homes and business premises, not exhibits, and the detail worth seeing is all on the outside. Look up, not in.

Come in the morning or the late afternoon. Raking light is what brings paterae, crosses and marble inlay out of a brick wall. At noon the same façades go flat.

Continue exploring

This slice is one part of the Turchi Walk. The full route, with the museums at either end, is set out in 17 Walks in Venice.

For more on wellheads, paterae and the way a Venetian campo works, see The Fabric of Venice.

Image source: interior of Palazzo Mocenigo – caffeflorian.com