Venice keeps its people close to hand.

Not in portrait galleries, but set into walls, standing on terraces, seated above doorways. In the first few hundred metres of the Goldoni Walk, Walk No. 1 in the sestiere of San Marco, you can meet four of them: a patriot buried in the side of the basilica, two bronze giants who have been striking the hours for five centuries, a woman remembered for a single well-aimed mortar, and a physician who paid to put himself on a church façade.

This slice runs from the north side of St Mark’s Basilica, under the clock tower, and up the Merceria to Campiello San Zulian. The distances are small. The company is good.

Daniele Manin, buried in the basilica wall

Before the walk proper begins, take a few steps to the left of St Mark’s, into the Piazzetta dei Leoncini, past the pair of red marble lions that face the main piazza.

On the north façade of the basilica, facing the piazzetta, is the funerary monument of Daniele Manin, the patriot who led Venice’s resistance to Austrian rule from 1848 to 1849. It marks his place of burial. Most visitors circle the basilica without noticing that a man rests in its side; the building was the Doge’s chapel, the state church of the Republic, and Manin lies against it like a late footnote to that state.

His name recurs across the city – a commemorative column at Campo San Salvador, a statue in the campo that carries his name – but this quiet wall is where the story ends. Note that the Ludovico Manin whose palazzo stands near the Rialto was a different man: the last Doge of Venice.

The Moors above the arch – POI #1

Return to the piazza. The clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, stands on the left of the square as you face the basilica, and the Goldoni Walk starts beneath it.

The central tower, usually attributed to Mauro Codussi, was unveiled in 1499. Side wings were added soon after, and the present silhouette owes much to the 1755 alterations. On the terrace stand the two bronze Moors, cast in 1497 by Ambrogio della Ancore, hammers raised over the bell that marks each hour. The dark patina their casting took on as it oxidised earned them the nickname. From the square they are silhouettes against the sky; up close, the mass of their shoulders shows how deliberately they were exaggerated to be read from below.

They keep to a strict division of labour. The Moor on the right strikes the bell two minutes before the hour; the Moor on the left, two minutes after. The bell they share was also cast in 1497, the work of a certain Simeone, who signed his name in the bronze. Guided tours of the tower can be booked online, climbing past the machinery to the terrace where you stand almost level with the pair.

Giustina Rossi and her mortar – POI #2

Pass under the arch below the clock tower and look up to the left for the commemorative relief of Giustina Rossi.

In 1310, Bajamonte Tiepolo and his followers streamed through the Merceria intending to take on the Doge, who was waiting for them in Piazza San Marco. Giustina Rossi is said to have dropped a stone mortar from her window, which landed on the head of the coup’s standard bearer as he passed below, killing him. The raiders, demoralised and disorganised, withdrew along the Merceria.

Asked what reward she would like for the patriotic act, she requested permission to display the banner of the Republic from her window on all feast days – and that her rent remain fixed for as long as she or her descendants lived in the house. A Venetian answer: honour first, but get the lease sorted.

Fifteen metres after the relief, turn right into Calle Larga San Marco. Head east for sixty metres and turn left into Calle Specchieri. Continue along it, watching for Calle dei Segretari just after No. 622. This calle hugs the southern side of the church of San Zulian; turn left there – you are on track if you can see No. 618 on the left – and follow the church wall around to Campiello San Zulian.

Tommaso Rangone, the man on the façade – POI #5

San Zulian is one of the very few free-standing churches in Venice: you can walk right around it, which the route has just made you do.

The original church is said to have been established in 829. The present building was the result of a rebuild that began in 1553, supervised by Jacopo Sansovino until his death in 1570, and completed by Alessandro Vittoria in 1580. The rebuild was funded by Tommaso Rangone, a physician from Ravenna, and he made sure nobody would forget it: he commissioned the façade in 1553, and his monument – made between 1554 and 1557 and installed about 1558 – sits above the door, with inscriptions describing his talents. The bronze portrait is now generally attributed to Alessandro Vittoria, after Sansovino’s earlier project.

The bronze figure is flanked by two carved globes: the terrestrial globe on the viewer’s left, the celestial globe on the viewer’s right. Rangone supplied the models for the globes himself, and had the celestial globe oriented towards Leo, his own birth sign. From below, several zodiac symbols can still be picked out along the bottom half, left to right: Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo. The bear figure in the centre represents Ursa Minor. It was a knowing display in a knowing place: the monument faces the Merceria, which in the 1550s was the heart of Venice’s thriving map trade, its engravers and print sellers working in the surrounding streets.

Inside are works and attributions by major late Venetian painters, including a Last Supper attributed to Tintoretto, Veronese’s 1584 Pietà, and works by Palma il Giovane and Leandro Bassano.

St George in the campiello – POI #6

With your back to the church, look up to the right.

There, dated 1496, is one of the many reliefs of St George slaying a dragon found around the city. He is not one of our four characters – he never lived here – but Venice adopted him anyway, as it adopted so much else, and set him to work watching over a shopping street. The campiello in front of the church is where this slice ends.

Walking context

This article covers the opening slice of Walk No. 1, the Goldoni Walk in San Marco – a ‘high payoff’ walk of 1.3 kilometres through the heart of the city’s commercial district, with the visit to Manin’s tomb added as a short preamble from the Piazzetta dei Leoncini.

From Campiello San Zulian, the full walk turns right into the street adjacent to the St George carving and continues eighty metres to Ponte Bareteri and the former Casino Venier, then on towards Campo San Salvador, the Goldoni statue in Campo San Bartolomeo, and the Rialto, before bending back to finish at Bocca di Piazza. There it connects with the Casanova Walk, Walk No. 2.

If arriving by vaporetto, Line 1 serves Piazza San Marco at the Vallaresso and San Zaccaria stops.

Practical visitor notes

Visits to the interior of the clock tower are by prior booking only, with a specialised guide; the tour lasts about 45 minutes and involves narrow, steep stairs. You will meet the guide inside the Correr Museum. Booking details are on the Musei Civici website.

This is the busiest corner of Venice, and the Merceria fills quickly. Early morning is the best time to have Giustina Rossi and the Moors more or less to yourself.

For a meal near the end of the slice, Al Conte Pescaor, in the streets at the rear of San Zulian, makes a convenient stop before continuing the walk.

Continue exploring

This slice is the opening section of the Goldoni Walk (see here). Continue with the full route in 17 Walks in Venice, which carries on to the Rialto and back, or pick up the Casanova Walk, Walk No. 2, where it finishes at Bocca di Piazza. Goldoni’s own house appears on Walk No. 6.

For a slower circuit of the piazza itself – including the clock tower, the Liberty Tree, and the rest of Manin’s square – see the Piazza San Marco walk in The Fabric of Venice.