Cantina Do Spade – Virtual Tour 360°

At a glance

Type

Osteria and bacaro

First documented

1414, as “il benefizio dell’osteria delle Spade”

The sign

Recorded in 1488, when Carlo de Zuane, host at the sign of the Spade, was steward of the innkeepers’ confraternity

In 1566

Owned by the Foscari family, let to an innkeeper named Battista

Where

Calle do Spade, San Polo 859/860, on the rio de le Beccarie

Open

Every day, 10:00–15:00 and 18:00–22:00

Overview

Behind the Rialto market, in the tangle of calli that carried the city’s food trade, a sign with two swords has named this corner of Venice for more than five centuries. The calle, the sotoportego and the bridge all take their name from it.

A word on what is documented and what is not. An osteria at this sign is attested from the fifteenth century; the present business cannot be shown to descend from it in unbroken line, and no founding year for the company exists. The sign is old. The claim of continuous trade since the 1400s is not something the record supports.

History

The earliest trace is a Venetian sentence of 1414 that mentions the benefice of the osteria delle Spade. In 1488, as Giuseppe Tassini records in his Curiosità veneziane, a certain Carlo de Zuane, host at the sign of the Spade, was steward of the innkeepers’ confraternity, which met in the nearby church of San Matteo. Tassini adds that by then the osteria was already «molto antica».

Marin Sanudo, the diarist of the Republic, also names the osteria della Spada at Rialto, on the rio delle Beccherie, without giving a date. A separate source, the property survey of 1566, records that the osteria delle do spade at San Matteo, with two shops beneath it, belonged to the Foscari family and was rented to an innkeeper called Battista. The two testimonies are often merged into one sentence that has Sanudo writing in 1566; he had been dead for thirty years.

The best-known evening here is documented by Casanova himself and reported by Tassini. On a carnival night in 1745 a gentleman of the Balbi family and Casanova, passing themselves off as officers of the Council of Ten, carried off a woman from San Giobbe, abandoned her companions on San Giorgio, and brought her to the osteria delle Spade to dine. It is one recorded night, not a habit.

The church that gave the parish its name is gone. San Matteo di Rialto, founded in 1156 and rebuilt from 1735, was closed in 1807 under the Napoleonic suppressions and then demolished, its site turned into private housing.

What you see

A narrow room with a counter, wooden panelling and the sign outside. The scale is the point: these were working premises in the food quarter, not a dining room, and the shape has not changed.

The toponymy around it is the real monument. Tassini records the Ponte and the Ramo delle Spade; today the calle and the sotoportego carry the name, on the rio de le Beccarie, the canal of the butchers.

Practical information

• Address: Calle do Spade, San Polo 859/860, Venezia
• Open: every day, 10:00–15:00 and 18:00–22:00
• Note on the date: the establishment’s own branding gives 1448; the source it rests on, Tassini, reads 1488. The earlier attestation, 1414, comes from a different entry in the same book

Nearby

• Bacaro Cantina do Mori — Restaurant, 46 m away
• Ostaria Antico Dolo — Bar, 89 m away
• Bacaro al Ravano — Cafe, 118 m away
• Laboratorium Venice — Laboratory, 186 m away

Sources

• Giuseppe Tassini, Curiosità veneziane, ed. Grimaldo 1872 — entries «Spade (Ponte, Ramo delle) a S. Matteo di Rialto», «Sturion» and «S. Matteo (Calle di) a Rialto»
• Marin Sanudo, cited by Tassini for the osteria della Spada on the rio delle Beccherie
• Property survey (catasto) of 1566, cited by Tassini for the Foscari ownership
• Giacomo Casanova, Histoire de ma vie, the carnival episode of 1745, as reported by Tassini