Venice keeps its luck in odd places.

Here it hangs on a wall beside a bridge: a pair of old iron anchors, polished by generations of passing hands. A few minutes away, a stone wild man watches a campiello from a palazzo façade. And at the end of this short route stands a church dressed in marble inside and out, built to house a painting that had already been working miracles for seventy years.

This slice of the Miracoli Walk, Walk No. 15, sits in the southern corner of Cannaregio. It runs from the bridge on the northern side of Campo San Canzian to Santa Maria dei Miracoli – a compact stretch, and one that saves its best for last.

The anchors at Ponte de San Canzian

Begin at the bridge on the northern side of Campo San Canzian, where a small cluster of points of interest, POIs #20 to #22, gathers around the water.

The most touchable of them are the ancorette – the little anchors, or hooks, fixed to the wall here. Touching them is said to bring good luck. Judging by their condition, plenty of people have taken no chances.

Just below the anchors is Sotoportego del Traghetto. On one of its columns, a scratch of old graffiti records the harsh winter of 1864, when parts of the lagoon froze and people walked across the ice toward San Cristoforo, now joined with San Michele, the cemetery island to the northeast. The sotoportego’s name is older still: this was the site of the ancient traghetto station for Murano, until it moved to the Fondamente Nove in 1589. The passage keeps both memories quietly, without ceremony.

San Canzian

Step back from the bridge into Campo San Canzian, where the church of San Canzian, POI #19, holds the square.

The dedication is unusual. The church honours the martyrs Canzio, Canziano and Canzianilla – two brothers and a sister, traditionally martyred near Aquileia around 304 – whose three names Venetian usage compressed into one. Three saints, one word.

Tradition places a church here as far back as 864, while the earliest documentary reference is around 1040–41. The building was altered several times over the centuries, including work in 1550 and while the church structure dates mainly from its mid-sixteenth-century reconstruction, its present public face belongs to the Baroque facade added in 1706 by Antonio Gaspari.

Inside are seventeenth and eighteenth-century works, including paintings by Bartolomeo Letterini.

The Wild Man of Campiello Santa Maria Nova

From Campo San Canzian, head southeast. A short walk brings you into Campiello Santa Maria Nova, a quiet square with a wellhead at its centre and, on one façade, a figure worth stopping for.

The palazzo is Palazzo Bembo-Boldù, POI #13. Perched on its front stands the Homo Silvanus, POI #14 – the Wild Man – often read as Saturn, or Time, because he holds a solar disc. The statue is associated with Senator Giammatteo Bembo in the sixteenth century, and it has been keeping its own kind of time ever since.

A wild man on a senator’s house is a curious choice, and he is not alone in the city. A relative of sorts appears on the façade of Ca’ Brass, covered in the Veronese Walk, Walk No. 14.

Santa Maria dei Miracoli

Leave the campiello and return to Campo Santa Maria Nova. After about twenty-five metres, cross the bridge into Campiello dei Miracoli, then follow Calle Fianco la Chiesa along the flank of the church. The building reveals itself gradually, one marble panel at a time, until you reach the front.

Santa Maria dei Miracoli, POI #12, is the church famous as Venice’s marble jewel box, faced in polychrome marble inside and out, and one of the few free-standing churches in the city. It was built under the patronage of the Amadi family, whose house, Ca’ Amadi, appears earlier in this walk at POI #3.

Building ran from 1481 to 1489, to designs by Pietro Lombardo and his workshop. The church was created to house the miracle-working Madonna and Child commissioned by Francesco Amadi in 1408 – traditionally attributed to Nicolò di Pietro, though some modern accounts identify the painter as Zanino di Pietro. Lombardo’s design merges the Byzantine styles that came before with the emerging elements of the Renaissance, and does it seamlessly. The varied colours of the marble, the modest scale of the building and its niche positioning do the rest.

The marble you see is not all original. Much of the facing was replaced or heavily restored during a long nineteenth-century campaign, begun in 1865 and completed in 1887.

Beyond that, the less said, the better. Step inside, and let the beauty, the form and the function of the church do the talking.

Walking context

This article covers a cluster near the end of Walk No. 15, the Miracoli Walk in Cannaregio, walked here in reverse of the book’s order so that the church makes the finale.

The full walk begins in Campo San Bartolomeo and works its way north past the Fontego dei Tedeschi, Ca’ Amadi and the courtyards of Marco Polo’s neighbourhood before reaching the Miracoli. Between the church and San Canzian, the book’s route also loops through the Widmann campielli and squeezes into Calle Varisco, Venice’s narrowest street at 53 centimetres – a detour left for another article.

From the anchors, the full walk turns back past San Canzian along Salizada San Canzian, crosses Ponte S. Giovanni Crisostomo into Campo San Giovanni Crisostomo, and finishes at Taverna Al Remer in Corte del Remer. The Ca’ Doro Walk, Walk No. 16, begins from the northern exit of that same campo, so the two join naturally.

The full route can be followed live in Google Maps – see the Cannaregio maps.

Practical visitor notes

This is a short slice, best taken slowly.

The campielli along the way are residential. Voices carry between the walls, so keep yours low, and leave the doorways and window boxes in peace.

If you touch the anchors, do it gently. They have a lot of luck left to give.

Allow time to go inside the Miracoli rather than only circling it. The exterior is the introduction; the interior is the point.

Continue exploring

This Cannaregio slice is one part of the wider Miracoli Walk. Continue with the full route in 17 Walks in Venice, which pairs naturally with the Goldoni and Pescaria walks in the neighbouring sestieri, or carry straight on into the Ca’ Doro Walk from Campo San Giovanni Crisostomo.

For more on how Venetian squares, churches, wells and neighbourhood life work together, see The Fabric of Venice.