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Ospedaletto
Longhena's baroque Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Derelitti (aka the Ospedaletto, or Little Hospital) is the focal point of a onetime orphanage. The façade is one of the most exuberant bursts of baroque in the city, with giant figures leaning out over the narrow street below. Inside are some fine works by Giambattista Tiepolo and Palma il Giovane.
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Pala D'oro
Behind the altar at the Basilica di San Marco, the exquisite Pala d'Oro is a gold, enamel and jewel-encrusted altarpiece (measuring 384cm by 212cm) made in Constantinople for Doge Pietro Orseolo I in 976. It was enriched and reworked in Constantinople in 1105, enlarged by Venetian goldsmiths in 1209 and reset in the 14th century. Among the almost 2000 stones that adorn it are 526 pearls, 320 emeralds, rubies, amethysts, sapphires, jasper, topaz and coralline.
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Palazzo Contarini Del Bovolo
This intriguing Renaissance mansion, hidden down narrow lanes off Campo Manin, takes its name from the dizzying external spiral ( bovolo in Venetian) staircase. Built in the late-15th century, the palace maintains a hint of the Gothic in its arches and capitals. You can enter the grounds and climb the staircase (when open), but it is perfectly visible from outside.
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Palazzo Dario
You can get some impression of this late-Gothic mansion (aka Ca' Dario) from the rear, but to really appreciate it you need to see the façade - a unique Renaissance marble facing that was taken down and reattached in the 19th century - from the Grand Canal. It was one of the first of Venice's Renaissance buildings to be faced entirely in marble.
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Palazzo Ducale
Welcome to the command centre of the Venetian Republic. The Doge's Palace, a rare example of civil Venetian Gothic, was home to the doge (duke) and all arms of government, including prisons, for much of the thousand or so years of the Republic. Two magnificent Gothic facades in white Istrian stone and pink Veronese marble face Piazzetta San Marco.
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Palazzo Fortuny
You'll recognise this building instantly by its two rows of hectafores , each a series of eight connected Venetian-style windows. Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, an eccentric Spanish painter and collector, bought the building at the beginning of the 20th century. He left his works here and, together with another 80 by the Roman artist Virgilio Guidi, they make up the bulk of the Museo Fortuny.
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Palazzo Franchetti
The 16th-century mansion, home to a private bank from 1922 to 1999, is now owned by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (Veneto Institute of the Sciences, Letters and Arts, founded by the Austrians in 1838), which has an impressive programme of expositions here.
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Palazzo Grassi
Magnates can be a mercurial lot. And French wheeler-dealer and contemporary art collector François Pinault surprised just about everyone in France and Italy when he snapped up the grand Palazzo Grassi in Venice as the central home for his considerable and eclectic collection.
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Palazzo Labia
Now the Venice office of the RAI, Italy's national radio and TV organisation, this was once a grand 17th-century family residence. It boasts several frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo, but you must phone to arrange a visit (when open).
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Palazzo Mocenigo
This mansion belonged to one of the most important families of the Republic. Originally a Gothic pile, it was overhauled in the 17th century and is typical of Venetian patricians' lodgings. The 16th-century philosopher Giordano Bruno was hosted here for a time by the Mocenigo family, who then betrayed him and handed him over to the Inquisition. (He was subsequently tortured and burnt at the stake in Rome for heresy.)
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Palazzo Querini Stampalia
The last of this branch of the Querini family ordained that its mansion should become home to a foundation of the same name, which it has been since the 1860s.
Never judge a book by its cover. The outer shell of this building dates from the first half of the 16th century, but the inside could not be more surprising.
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Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi
Behind the restrained Renaissance canalside of this mansion lurk the gambling rooms of the city's casino. The composer Richard Wagner expired here in 1883. You can wander into the ground-floor area during casino hours but you'll have to fork out to see the gaming rooms, where formal dress is obligatory. To tour the rooms Wagner took while in Venice, book a place on Friday between and noon for the tour that takes place at on Saturday.
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Palazzo Zenobio
This grand baroque structure has housed the Collegio Armeno dei Padri Mechitaristi (Armenian College of Mechitarist Fathers) since the mid-19th century. The structure is the handiwork of Antonio Gaspari, but apart from the grand curved tympanum, the exterior of the building tells you little. To behold the Sala della Musica (Music Room), also called the Sala dei Specchi (Hall of Mirrors) is to witness Gaspari's voluptuous décor at its bubbly baroque extreme.
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Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Eccentric millionaire art collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) called the unfinished Palazzo Venier dei Leoni home for 30 years. She left behind, apart from her cherished dogs buried with her in the sculpture garden, a collection representing most of the major art movements of the 20th century. Works by Picasso, Dali and Miro make this an essential visit.
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Ponte Dell'accademia
Built in 1934 to replace its 1854 iron predecessor, the last of the Grand Canal bridges was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. That seems to have been forgotten, and the municipality is forever having to patch this timber job up. From the middle, the views in both directions along the Grand Canal are spellbinding.
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Ponte Di Calatrava
The Spanish architect's daring, luminous design for Venice's fourth pedestrian bridge, linking the train station with Piazzale Roma, is a fantasy of glass, stone and steel. It has also been an incredible cock-up. Subject of controversy from the beginning (why a bridge so close to the Ponte dei Scalzi?), the idea was born in 1996 and the bridge should have been in place by 2002.
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Rialto
Rivoalto (later contracted to Rialto), the highest spot in the collection of islets that formed the nucleus of the lagoon city, was one of the areas of first settlement - although the more active part was initially on the San Marco side of the bridge. The San Polo side slowly gained the ascendance and became the centre of trade and banking for the Republic. This is where dosh traded hands, voyages were bankrolled, insurance was arranged and news (or gossip) was exchanged.
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San Giorgio Maggiore
On the island of the same name, Palladio's Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore has one of the most prominent positions in Venice and, although it inspired mixed reactions among the architect's contemporaries, it had a significant influence on Renaissance architecture.
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Scuola Di San Giorgio Degli Schiavoni
Venice's Dalmatian community established this religious school in the 15th century and the building was erected in the 16th century. The main attraction is on the ground floor, where the walls are graced by a series of superb paintings by Vittore Carpaccio depicting events in the lives of the three patron saints of Dalmatia: George, Tryphone and Jerome.
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Scuola Grande Dei Carmini
Just before you bump into the church of the same name at the southwest end of Campo Santa Margherita, you pass this scuola (literally, school; religious confraternity), with numerous paintings by Tiepolo and others. Tiepolo's nine ceiling paintings in the Salone Superiore (Upper Hall) depict the virtues surrounding the Virgin in Glory.
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Scuola Grande Di San Giovanni Evangelista
Hidden behind what is to all intents an open-air iconostasis, and thus set back from the street, is one of the six major Venetian scuole . The plan is typical of the big schools, with an assembly hall (divided in two by a line of columns) and a grand staircase up to the 1st-floor hall, which contains an altar used for religious services. Codussi designed the original interior and Renaissance staircase, and Massari restyled the main hall in 1727.
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Scuola Grande Di San Marco
Standing at right angles to the Chiesa dei SS Giovanni e Paolo is the eye-catching marble frontage of this scuola . Pietro Lombardo and his sons all worked on what was once one of the most important of Venice's religious confraternities. Codussi put the finishing touches on this Renaissance gem.
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Scuola Grande Di San Rocco
Scarpagnino's Renaissance façade (exhibiting a hint of the baroque to come), with its white-marble columns and overbearing magnificence, seems uncomfortably squeezed into the tight space of the narrow square below it. Whatever you make of the exterior of this scuola dedicated to St Roch, nothing can prepare you for what lies inside.
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St Mark's Basilica
St Mark's is one of the most spectacular houses of worship in the world, attesting to the Venetian Republic's former maritime and commercial might. Adorned with an incredible array of plundered treasures, it is a seething mass of domes and arches. The dress code requires knees, shoulders and upper arms be covered.
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St Mark's Square
Napoleon dubbed it the 'finest drawing room in Europe', and visitors and pigeons alike have been flocking here for centuries to strut and crow. There is a constant carnival atmosphere thanks to the cacophony of duelling cafe orchestras, cooing pigeons, and constant traffic of waiters serving alfresco diners.
