Campo San Polo is built for lingering. The second largest public space in Venice, it holds its church, its palazzi and the city’s largest wellhead in one broad, self-contained sweep.
This slice does something different. It leaves. From the church of San Polo, a short diversion slips out of the campo, crosses a canal, and goes looking for a palazzo that keeps its riches indoors.
The detour belongs to the Campo San Polo walk – the second walk in The Fabric of Venice – in the sestiere of San Polo. It returns you to the campo by a different bridge, past a winged lion and a watchful Hercules.
Out through the southeast corner
Leave the campo at its southeast corner and head over Ponte de la Madoneta.
Along the way you will pass POI #6, a collection of decorative paterae and reliefs attached to the remains of an ancient structure. They reward a slow pass. Venice keeps its old ornament in circulation, and this cluster of carved stone is a case in point.
The route runs on through Campiello dei Meloni, POI #7. Pasticceria Rizzardini sits close by, and makes a sensible stopping place on either leg of the diversion.
From there, a few twists and turns bring you to Campiello Albrizzi and the palazzo of the same name.
Palazzo Albrizzi
This is POI #8, and the reason for the diversion.
The Albrizzi established themselves in Venice during the sixteenth century, although early accounts variously traced their origins to Bergamo, Como, Greece or the Kingdom of Candia. What is certain is the money. Their fortune was built on cloth and oil, and they put it to patriotic use, providing merchant ships for the Republic in its war against the Turks. Antonio, who had armed several vessels at his own expense, fell in battle; so did Maffio, present with ships of his own.
Patriotism, sweetened with a payment of one hundred thousand ducats to the Treasury, did the rest. On 31 May 1667, Giuseppe, Giovanni Battista, Alessandro and Anton Francesco Albrizzi were admitted to the Maggior Consiglio, the Great Council of Venice.
The palazzo itself is older than their ownership. Built toward the end of the sixteenth century for the Bonomo family, it passed to the Albrizzi in the second half of the 1600s, sealing the family’s admission to the patriciate in stone.
Its façade overlooks the canal behind the campiello, centred on two superimposed Serlian windows. The exterior is conservative, almost austere. The interior is anything but.
Between 1690 and 1710 the rooms were renovated with high-relief stuccowork on a lavish scale. The ballroom ceiling carries a flamboyant display of stucco drapery held aloft by twenty-eight putti in flight, nestled amongst the folds, with paintings of the Albrizzi family flanking them on the walls. The interior remodelling is associated with Antonio Gaspari, while the extraordinary stuccowork is attributed to Abbondio Stazio and Carpoforo Mazzetti Tencalla. It remains one of the very few palazzi in the city where the interior decoration and original furnishings survive intact.
The palazzo had its literary age too. Isabella Teotochi, from Corfu and the wife of Giuseppe Albrizzi, presided over a drawing room visited by Ippolito Pindemonte, Vincenzo Monti, Lord Byron, Vittorio Alfieri, and Ugo Foscolo – the last of whom is said to have felt rather more than friendship for his hostess. Antonio Canova joined the society life of the house and gave a Head of Helen to its lady.
One more layer sits beneath the garden. Part of the palazzo’s garden occupies the site of the Teatro Nuovo di San Cassiano, opened to paying audiences in 1637 and widely regarded as Europe’s first public opera house. The theatre was demolished in 1812.
A bomb set in the wall
Before leaving the campiello, look at the façade to the left of the palazzo for POI #9.
A plaque embedded there carries an inscription by Gabriele D’Annunzio, denouncing the bombing of the city by the Austro-Hungarians during the First World War. The plaque is topped with the ogive of one of those bombs, its nose cone set into the wall.
It is a small, blunt piece of the twentieth century in a city that usually wears older wounds.
The way back: a winged lion and Hercules
Retrace your steps. As you head out of Campiello Albrizzi, look for the relief of a winged lion over the doorway at No. 1945, POI #10.
On the return to the campo, cross Ponte Cavalli. From the bridge, look to the right for the secondary façade of Palazzo Maffetti on the canal, then enter the campo between Palazzo Maffetti and Palazzo Soranzo.
Palazzo Maffetti is POI #11. Its frontage on Campo San Polo stands at No. 1957. Its design is traditionally attributed to Domenico Rossi, who trained in Baldassarre Longhena’s workshop, although the palace’s precise construction history remains uncertain. It is generally placed in the early eighteenth century. The detail to find is the keystone of the main entry: the head of Hercules, covered with a lion’s pelt.
The decoration is thought to be a reference to the power of the Maffetti, a family rooted in commerce and admitted to the patrician class in 1654. Newcomers to the top, announcing themselves with the strongest man in mythology. Subtlety was not the point.
Walking context
This diversion sits at the middle of the Campo San Polo walk. The walk begins on Ponte San Polo, just outside the campo’s southwestern edge, and reaches the church of San Polo before this detour departs.
On re-entering the campo at Ponte Cavalli, the route continues along the eastern side: the double façade of Palazzo Soranzo, once frescoed by Tintoretto, then Palazzo Donà, a short second diversion to Ca’ Bernardo, and finally Palazzo Corner Mocenigo and the largest wellhead in Venice.
The full circuit runs to 950 metres and takes about 45 minutes. The nearest neighbouring space in the book is Campo San Giacomo da l’Orio, some 450 metres away. The full route can be followed on the San Polo walking map.
Practical visitor notes
Palazzo Albrizzi remains in private hands and is not normally open to the public. Its treasures are interior ones – the stucco, the putti, the portraits – so read the façade, take in the campiello, and let the stories carry the rest.
Campiello Albrizzi and the calli around it are residential. Keep voices low, especially early and late in the day.
Pasticceria Rizzardini, near Campiello dei Meloni, makes a natural pause on either leg. The wider walk also suits an evening passeggiata.
Continue exploring
This diversion is one slice of the Campo San Polo walk in The Fabric of Venice, which continues around the campo’s palazzi, its church, and its history of markets, bull hunts and human pyramids.
Campo San Polo also appears in 17 Walks in Venice, which crosses the campo on its longer route through the sestiere of San Polo.
And Hercules is not finished with lions. Elsewhere in the city he wrestles one – a scene that can be found on the Campo Santo Stefano walk with a small diversion.