San Polo
Canal-side quarter of narrow lanes centered on a historic market and Venice's largest public square.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to San Polo in Venice centers on Lorenzino de' Medici, an exile who had killed his own cousin, the tyrant Duke Alessandro, in Florence eleven years earlier and fled to Venice believing the lagoon would keep him safe. It follows him on an ordinary February evening in 1548, walking home from mass through the square with a companion, and the question historians have argued over ever since: whose order was waiting for him in the dark. Europe itself split for years over whether Lorenzino was a murderer or a hero.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Campo Santa Margherita
Long, irregular square formed from filled-in canals, ringed by cafes and a deconsecrated Byzantine-era church tower.
St. Zacharias Church
Romanesque church with a flooded crypt holding eight early doges and a luminous Bellini altarpiece.
Sestiere San Marco
Historic core district wrapped by the Grand Canal, built around the smuggled relics of a stolen saint.
Sestiere Cannaregio
Sprawling waterside quarter of quiet canals, tall tenements, and the world's first Jewish ghetto.
Dorsoduro
Waterside district on firm ground, with an unfinished palace turned art museum and gondola yards.
Jewish Quarter
Renaissance quarter of towering, seven-storey tenements built around the world's first Jewish ghetto.