From here, too, the beautiful palace of the Camerlenghi at the edge of the Erberia is most easily studied.

The Rialto bridge itself exerts no spell.

It does not compare in interest or charm with the Ponte Vecchio of Florence.
The busiest and noisiest part of Venice begins at the further foot of the bridge, for here are the markets, crowded by housewives with their bags or baskets, and a thousand busy wayfarers.
The little church of the market-place--the oldest in Venice--is S.
Giacomo di Rialto, but I have never been able to find it open.

Commerce now washes up to its walls and practically engulfs it.

A garden is on its roof, and its clock has stopped permanently at four.
It was in this campo that the merchants anciently met: here, in the district of the Rialto, and not on the bridge itself, as many readers suppose, did Antonio transact his business with one Shylock a Jew.