Venice: From the Rialto to San Marco

The present stone bridge, a single span, was built from 1588 to 1591 to a design by Antonio da Ponte, and its engineering was thought so audacious that the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi predicted its ruin. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice has Salanio open Act III with the question "What news on the Rialto?", and Robert Browning's poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's" calls it Shylock's bridge.

Visitor guidance: An open public bridge.

Construction of the clock tower on the edge of the square started in 1496. On top, two bronze shepherds, 2.5 metres high, strike the great bell with hammers; they are known as the Moors. Venice has a cameo in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker, where Bond throws a villain through the face of the clock. The film did not use the real clock.

Visitor guidance: The tower is seen from Piazza San Marco.

Medieval chronicles tell how two Venetian merchants removed Saint Mark's body from Alexandria in Egypt and brought it to Venice in 828 or 829. The present basilica, the third church on the site, was begun probably in 1063. Its four gilded bronze horses were early spoils brought from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade.

Visitor guidance: The basilica stands on Piazza San Marco.

On 21 August 1609 Galileo Galilei demonstrated his telescope from the belfry to the procurator Antonio Priuli and other nobles. The tower later fell: at 9:53 on 14 July 1902 the entire bell tower collapsed. The campanile standing today is a reconstruction completed in 1912, after the earlier tower collapsed in 1902.

Visitor guidance: The square gives the best view of the tower.

On 26 July 1755, aged 30, Giacomo Casanova was arrested for affront to religion and common decency and imprisoned under the Leads: seven cells on the top floor of the east wing of the Doge's Palace. With the help of Father Balbi he broke through the lead plates and onto the sloping roof, in swirling fog. In 1787 he wrote Story of My Flight. A corridor from the palace leads over the Bridge of Sighs.

Visitor guidance: The Doge's Palace can be visited.

The white Istrian limestone bridge was built shortly after 1600 and connects the Doge's Palace with the New Prison across Rio di Palazzo. Its famous name dates from the Romantic period. The 1979 film A Little Romance features it heavily.

Visitor guidance: A corridor of the Doge's Palace crosses it.