The symbolic bridge and the fish market
For more than three centuries the Rialto Bridge was the only way to cross the Grand Canal on foot. The first bridges, of wood, collapsed or burned several times; in 1588 the Republic held a competition, in which Michelangelo, Palladio and Sansovino took part, but the commission went to Antonio da Ponte, whose bold single stone arch, 28 metres wide, was completed in 1591. Its two rows of shops and its central arch, from which the view sweeps over the canal and its palaces, have made it one of the symbols of Venice.
The Rialto area was the commercial heart of the Serenissima, where merchants, bankers and moneychangers met, a world described by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. That tradition lives on in the Rialto market: under the Gothic arcades of the Pescheria, the fish market, the stalls overflow with lagoon fish, cuttlefish, spider crabs and the small grey shrimp called schie, while the Erbaria, the fruit and vegetable market, sells products from the lagoon islands, such as the artichokes of Sant'Erasmo and the purple castraure. Around them, the bacari, the traditional wine bars, serve an "ombra" of wine with cicchetti.
Tip: the fish market is open in the morning, Tuesday to Saturday; visit early, then stop at a bacaro for a glass and a cicchetto.
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