San Giacomo di Rialto, Venezia

VENICE, SAN POLO · 11TH–12TH CENTURY

San Giacomo di Rialto: the clock of 1410 and the last Gothic porch in Venice

Venetians call it San Giacometto. It stands on Campo San Giacomo di Rialto, it went up with the market around it, and it is the reason the square has a face.

At a glance

Tradition dates the church to 421 and calls it the oldest in Venice, founded by a carpenter who vowed it if a fire spared him. The evidence puts its construction between the 11th and the 12th century, at the same time as the market that surrounds it. Either way it is older than everything facing it: the fire of 10 January 1514 destroyed the shops of Rialto and left the church standing.

What you see

A large clock of 1410 on the front, above a small Gothic porch in stone and wood. That porch is the only original example left in Venice — the last survivor of a form that once sheltered the doors of many Venetian churches. Below it the campo runs straight up to the steps, without a churchyard or a flight of stairs to separate the building from the market.

Why it matters

A church built into a market is not a common thing, and this one never pretended otherwise: it has no square of its own, no approach, no distance. It shared the ground with the bankers under the portico and with the stone from which sentences were proclaimed a few metres away.

What it does today

A timber structure built against the flank of the church, with a first-aid sign in five languages above its door — The timber structure against the church, and the sign of the first-aid post. Photo: Luigi De Marchi

The church has been in the care of the Arciconfraternita di San Cristoforo e della Misericordia since 4 May 1932, when Patriarch Cardinal Pietro La Fontaine granted it the use of the building. In 2000 the confraternity also obtained the ground-floor rooms beside it, until then the station of the municipal police of the wholesale fruit and vegetable market.

Since 5 June 2001 those rooms have held a clinic and reception centre for, in the confraternity’s own words, the destitute, people with no fixed address, and foreigners without papers. The sign above the door of the timber structure gives first aid in five languages. It is worth standing still for a moment in front of it: the oldest church in Venice, in the middle of the most crowded market in the city, spends its ground floor on the people the market does not see.

Practical information

The church stands on Campo San Giacomo di Rialto and is open to visitors; hours are set by the parish
The market beside it works in the morning

Getting there

Waterbus to Rialto Mercato; the church closes the far side of the campo at the western foot of the Rialto bridge.

Sources

Comune di Venezia, Una calle, una storia: campo San Giacometo — live.comune.venezia.it
Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, entry ABBONDI, Antonio detto lo Scarpagnino
Arciconfraternita di San Cristoforo e della Misericordia, Chiesa S. Giacometto — misericordiavenezia.org

Photographs by Luigi De Marchi. Editorial text © Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.

Gallery

The lead dome and white bell gable of San Giacomo di Rialto rising behind the market shops, a sundial painted on the plastered wall below — The back of the church from the Ruga dei Oresi: the lead dome, the bell gable, and a sundial painted on the plaster with its gnomon set into the wall. Photo: Luigi De Marchi, 2023.

The front of San Giacomo di Rialto in Venice with its large single-hand clock, the five-column Gothic porch below and the bell gable with two bells above, seen across the busy campo — The church front across the campo: the clock, the porch on five columns, the bell gable above. Photo: Stefano Vigolo, 2015.

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Travel tips from CHO

Go on the first Sunday of the month

State museums, archaeological parks and monuments across Italy open free of charge on the first Sunday of every month. It covers state-run sites only — civic and private museums set their own prices — and there is nothing to claim: you simply walk in.

The ministry’s free days →

In September, the doors that are usually shut open

For one long weekend every September, some fifty European countries run the European Heritage Days together: palaces, workshops, archives and private houses that are closed the rest of the year let visitors in, almost always for nothing. Italy sets its own dates, and they are published a few weeks ahead.

Dates, country by country →

Arrive already connected

Maps, opening hours and tickets all need data, and roaming outside your own network still costs more than the ticket. A travel eSIM for Italy installs on your phone before you leave home and works the moment you land — no queue at the airport, no physical card to swap.

Data plans for Italy →Affiliate link — what this means

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