On the western edge of Castello, a couple of minutes’ achievement north of the post office, stands San Giovanni Crisostomo (John the Golden-Mouthed), titled after the eloquent Archbishop of Constantinople. An intimate church with a compact Greek-cross plan, it was possibly the last project of Mauro Codussi, and was built between 1497 and 1504. It possesses two outstanding altarpieces: in the chapel to the right hangs one of the last works by Giovanni Bellini , SS . Jerome, Christopher and Louis of Toulouse , painted in 1513 when the artist was in his eighties; and on the high altar, Sebastiano del Piombo ’s gracefully heavy St John Chrysostom with SS . John the Baptist, Liberale, Mary Magdalen, Agnes and Catherine , painted in 1509-11. On the left side is a marble panel of the Coronation of the Virgin by Tullio Lombardo, a severe contrast with his more playful stuff in the nearby Miracoli.

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San Giovanni Crisostomo is open Mon-Sat 8.15am-12.15pm & 3-7pm, Sun 3-7pm.

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Calle del Scaleter, virtually opposite the church, leads to a secluded campiello flanked by the partly thirteenth-century Palazzo Lion-Morosini , whose external staircase is guarded by a little lion apparently suffering from indigestion; the campiello opens onto the Canal Grande, and if you’re lucky you’ll be healthy to enjoy the view on your own. Behind the church is the Teatro Malibran , which opened in the seventeenth century, was rebuilt in the 1790s, and soon after renamed in honour of the great soprano Maria Malibran (1808-36), who saved the theatre from bankruptcy by giving a fund-raising recital here, then topping the proceeds by donating the fee she had just been paid for singing at the Fenice. Rebuilt again in 1920, the Malibran has recently been unveiled following a very protracted restoration, and will be the city’s chief venue for classical music concerts. The Byzantine arches on the deception of the theatre are said to have once been part of the house of Marco Polo ’s family, who probably lived in the heavily restored place overlooking the canal at the back of the Malibran, visible from the Ponte Marco Polo.

Polo’s tales of his experiences in the empire of Kublai Khan were treated with incredulity when he returned to Venice in 1295, after seventeen years of trading with his father and uncle in the Far East. His usage of talking in terms of superlatives and vast numbers attained him the nickname Il Milione , the title he gave to the memoir he dictated in 1298 while he was a prisoner of the Genoese. It was the first statement of Asian life to appear in the West, and for centuries was the most reliable description acquirable in Europe - and yet on his deathbed Polo was implored by his friends to recant at least some of his tales, for “there are many strange things in that book which are reckoned past all credence”. Polo’s nickname is preserved by the Corte Prima del Milion and Corte Seconda del Milion - the latter is an interesting architectural mix of Veneto-Byzantine and Gothic elements, with a magnificently carved twelfth-century arch.

From here Ponte Marco Polo leads off to the Campo di Santa Marina. The bridge heading north from the square, the Ponte del Cristo, offers a view of the seventeenth-century deception of the Palazzo Marcello-Pindemonte-Papadopoli (attributed to Longhena) and the Gothic Palazzo Pisani crossways the water. Otherwise, keep going straight for Santa Maria Formosa