Marco Polo’s District: A short walk with a high payoff

Some Venetian neighbourhoods keep their reputation quietly.

This one belonged to a man whose name travelled further than almost any other, and it does nothing whatever to advertise the fact. There is a plaque. There are some worn carvings. There is a theatre. Beyond that, you are on your own.

This short slice of the Miracoli Walk, Walk No. 15 in Cannaregio, runs from the Ponte de l’Ogio to the courts behind the Teatro Malibran. It covers perhaps three hundred metres. It holds a Codussi church, a Gothic courtyard that most visitors never see, and the ground on which Marco Polo lived.

Ca’ Amadi from the bridge

Head north across Ponte de l’Ogio. On the bridge, look right.

That is Ca’ Amadi, POI #3.

In 1452, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, came to Venice with his wife Eleanor. Francesco Amadi and his brother hosted the royal entourage in this house. For the service, Francesco was made a Count.

It is worth pausing over what that transaction actually was. A merchant family put up an emperor for a few days, and Francesco came away with a title. The building is still here, still on its canal, and still looks like what it was: a working house belonging to people who could afford to be useful to the right guest.

The Amadi appear again later in this walk. Santa Maria dei Miracoli, the marble jewel box at POI #12, was commissioned by another member of the family, Angelo Amadi, and built by Pietro Lombardo and his workshop.

Venice canal with old weathered buildings, green shutters, and a small boat tied to a wooden dock. — Ca’ Amadi on its canal, where the Amadi family hosted Frederick III in 1452.

San Giovanni Crisostomo

Leave the bridge and follow the Salizada for sixty metres. This brings you to the southwestern corner of San Giovanni Crisostomo, POI #5. A pasticceria waits on the way at POI #4, and there is no rule against arriving at a church with a pastry in hand.

You will pass close to this corner again near the end of the walk, so the church can be visited now or kept for later.

An eleventh-century church stood here until fire destroyed it in 1475. Rebuilding began in 1497 under Mauro Codussi. After his death in 1504, his son Domenico completed the work. It was Codussi’s last church. His other well-known church designs appear on Walk No. 9, San Zaccaria, and Walk No. 10, Santa Maria Formosa, both also under construction during this late phase of Codussi’s career.

Codussi was a stonecutter by trade, and it shows. His façades are engineered rather than merely decorated, cut with precision in Istrian stone. His first commission, San Michele in Isola, is the reference point.

Here the money was tighter and the site tighter still. What you get is a modest version of the San Michele façade, pressed onto a narrow calle where you cannot stand far enough back to take it in properly. That is not a failure of the design. It is the ordinary condition of building in a city with no spare ground.

Inside, the compensation is considerable. There are works by Giovanni Bellini – Saints Jerome, Christopher and Louis of Toulouse of 1513 – and by Sebastiano del Piombo, whose St. John Chrysostom and Six Saints dates from 1510 to 1511. Look for Tullio Lombardo’s relief of the Coronation of the Virgin, and for Codussi’s hand again in the construction of Giacomo Bernabò’s chapel.

Pink church with a tall bell tower dominates a sunny plaza, a market stall selling hats and souvenirs in the foreground, pedestrians walking by. — San Giovanni Crisostomo, Mauro Codussi’s last church, on its narrow campo.

Corte Morosina

Return to, or move on from, the southwestern corner of the church. Turn right – or left, if you are looping back – and follow the southern flank of the building for fifteen metres.

Then take the diversion right into Calle del Cagnoletto. After a left turn it becomes Calle Morosini. Follow it through to Corte Morosina, POI #6.

This is a Gothic courtyard in the middle of the city, and the crowds are not in it. Time behaves oddly in places like this. There is a vera da pozzo, a patera, and architecture that has not been asked to perform for anyone in a long while.

Give it a few minutes. The fourteenth-century wellhead is part of the court’s working history. Venice had to catch and store fresh water, and cisterns like this made wells part of the daily rhythm of the city. Take the diversion, and the walk changes pace for a moment.

Into the courts of the Milion

Retrace your steps to the start of Calle del Cagnoletto and turn right. What follows is a short tangle of manoeuvres through the area where Marco Polo lived in his later years.

Take the sotoportego into Corte Prima del Milion o del Forno, POI #7, and onward into Corte Seconda del Milion. At the eastern side of the corte, take Sotoportego del Milion, which delivers you onto Fondamenta del Teatro.

The name follows you through all of it. Milion was a nickname attached to Marco Polo and his branch of the family. An old explanation linked it to the fabulous numbers and riches in his stories; another, now better supported, derives it from Emilione, an older family name. Either way, it stuck, and it is now worked into the street names and the architecture around you.

The site of his house is marked by a plaque, POI #9. The Teatro Malibran now occupies the ground.

Do not expect a house. Expect a neighbourhood, which is the better prize. In the courtyard of the Casa Morosini and in Corte Milion, look up at the window arches and into the doorways. There are small carved details here, and paterae set into some of the buildings – roundels often cut from slices of disused marble columns, filled with birds and beasts, standard decorative currency in the Veneto-Byzantine era.

These are vestiges. They are also the strongest thing this slice offers. Enough of the old fabric survives in these courts that the neighbourhood Polo left behind is not a difficult act of imagination. It is more or less in front of you.

Stone relief with two circular medallions of birds facing each other, surrounded by floral rosettes, on a brick wall. — Veneto-Byzantine carved reliefs surviving in Corte del Milion, with paired birds worked into the stone.

Walking context

This is the opening stretch of the Miracoli Walk, Walk No. 15 in Cannaregio.

The walk begins at Campo San Bartolomeo and leaves it in the north on Salizada del Fontego dei Tedeschi. If you want the bacaro at POI #2, watch for No. 5541 and a right turn off the Salizada. The Fontego dei Tedeschi itself – the trading post and living quarters of the city’s German merchants, built in 1228 and rebuilt between 1505 and 1508 after a fire – stands at the start, and appears again on the Goldoni Walk, Walk No. 1. Its shopping arcade has now closed.

From the courts of the Milion, the route resumes over Ponte Marco Polo and into Calle Scaleta, which ends at a sotoportego. That point is where this walk crosses the Formosa Walk, Walk No. 10, in Castello. Bear left immediately into Campo Santa Marina, leave it in the north on Calle del Cristo, cross Ponte del Cristo, and follow Fondamenta van Axel o de le Erbe for thirty-five metres to the doorway of Palazzo Soranzo van Axel at POI #10. Beyond that lies Santa Maria dei Miracoli itself.

The walk later returns to this same corner of San Giovanni Crisostomo near its close, and the Ca’ Doro Walk, Walk No. 16, begins by leaving this campo to the north. The Miracoli Walk also pairs well with the Goldoni Walk in San Marco and the Pescaria Walk in San Polo, three compact routes that between them cover much of the inner city.

The full route can be followed on the Cannaregio walking map.

Practical visitor notes

This slice is short. Three hundred metres, and a great deal folded into it.

The church can be taken now or on the way back, since the route passes this way twice. Deciding early saves a little doubling.

Corte Morosina and the courts of the Milion are residential. People live behind these doorways and hang their washing above these stones. Look up, look closely, and keep your voice down.

Carved detail rewards raking light rather than flat midday sun. Morning or late afternoon will do more for the paterae than noon.

Continue exploring

This is one section of the Miracoli Walk. The full route, which continues to Palazzo Soranzo van Axel, Santa Maria dei Miracoli and the narrowest street in Venice, is set out in 17 Walks in Venice. A later slice of the same walk picks up the route not far from here.

For the neighbouring route, the Ca’ Doro Walk leaves from this same campo and heads north through Cannaregio toward the Gesuiti and the Oratory of the Crociferi. Eastward, the Formosa Walk in Castello crosses this one at the sotoportego beyond Ponte Marco Polo.

For more on wellheads, courtyards, paterae and the way a Venetian neighbourhood is put together, see The Fabric of Venice.

Image credits: Ca’ Amadi by Abxbay; San Giovanni Crisostomo by Didier Descouens. Both via Wikimedia Commons.

About the books

This field note is drawn from 17 Walks in Venice. The updated edition offers crafted itineraries away from the main tourist hotspots that are mostly under 1.5 miles each, with detailed walking maps, over 400 features to see, and the best restaurants, cafés and bars along the way. Available on Amazon.

The Fabric of Venice is a way of seeing the city differently. Built around eight campi, its walks show how each square once worked – wellheads, faded frescoes, paving that hints at vanished canals. It reveals Venice as a lived-in place rather than a postcard. Available on Ko-fi.