On each side of the bridge is a shrine.
Before this stone bridge was built in 1588 by Antonio da Ponte it had wooden predecessors.

Carpaccio's Santa Croce picture in the Accademia shows us what the immediate forerunner of the present bridge was like.
It had a drawbridge in the middle to prevent pursuit that way during brawls.
The first palace beyond the bridge, now a decaying congeries of offices, has very rich decorative stone work, foliation and festoons.

It was once the head-quarters of the Camerlenghi, the procurators-fiscal of Venice.
Then come the long fruit and vegetable markets, and then the new fish market, one of the most successful of new Venetian buildings, with its springing arches below and its loggia above and its iron lamp at the right corner and bronze fisherman at the left.
A fondamenta runs right away from the Rialto bridge to a point just beyond the new fish market, with some nice houses on it, over shops, the one on the left of the fish market having very charming windows.

The first palace of any importance is the dull red one on the other side of the Calle dei Botteri, the Dona.

Then a decayed palace and the Calle del Campanile where the fondamenta ends.