Veni, vidi, Venice

Pianissimo, pianissimo.

That’s how morning comes on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Pigeons dawdle around a trash can, in no rush to pillage. The young woman who tends the newsstand gives her dog a bowl of water. Then the grate at the Bar all’Orologio clangs open, a sure sign that another summer day has begun in Venice.

The paved square -- or campo -- around the Church of Santa Maria Formosa is one of dozens hidden among the tangled streets of Venice, affectionately known as La Serenissima, the serene one. Each campo is the hub of its own little universe, where a church, bank, bar, tobacco shop, ancient well head and long shopping street supply all the necessities of life, from religion to pasta.

I’d been to Venice before, gawked at San Marco -- St. Mark’s -- seen the Veroneses at the Accademia, ridden the water buses, or vaporetti. When I returned last month, I settled into three little campi not nearly as famous as San Marco but full of wonders that I never had to stray far from my hotel to explore.

CAMPO SANTA MARIA FORMOSA, CASTELLO

Leave San Marco from the piazza’s northeastern corner, cross the Campo San Zulian, jog left, then right and if you’re lucky you’ll end up on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa.

The church that gives the campo its name is thought to have been founded in the 7th century but was rebuilt in the early Renaissance by architect Mauro Coducci. It has an exceptional setting, within the square, not on a flank, and a comely campanile that seems to have been decorated with a tube of frosting.

The campo is a large rectangle bounded on two sides by canals where gondoliers fan themselves while waiting for the next romantic couple. The other two sides are lined by fine palazzi with peaked Venetian Byzantine windows. Some are given over to small businesses -- the neighborhood pharmacy and funeral parlor -- but others, like the Palazzo Querini-Stampaglia, have grander purposes. Reached by its own little bridge, this palazzo is a library and picture gallery. Across the campo is the imposing Ruzzini Palace Hotel recently opened as a luxury hotel.

I stayed at the Hotel Casa Santa Maria Formosa around the corner. Like many small Venetian hotels, it has no sign or elevator. The reception desk is minuscule, and the air conditioner in the breakfast room couldn’t cope with the heat.

But my room was cool enough, decorated with the warring fabrics, patterns, decoupage and gilding well known to budget-loving aficionados of Venice.

I liked going out in the relative cool of the early morning, getting a newspaper, having my first cappuccino at the Bar all’Orologio and watching one of the last authentic neighborhoods in Venice come to life. In the last several decades, rising real estate prices have driven residents out; the population dropped from 171,000 in 1951 to fewer than 62,000 in 2006, leaving the city a tourist ghetto.

But you wouldn’t know it in this campo, where I watched men with briefcases hurrying to work. Old women pushing shopping carts quarreled at the vegetable stand. Finally, the tourists started coming out, studying maps until they got the idea of looking up at the church.

It is one of the most companionable in Venice, with two main facades, one facing the canal, the other overlooking the campo where tourists enter. As the interior restoration proceeds, visitors can watch workers on ladders scour stone moldings and chip away old paint.

Reconstructed many times over the last millennium, the church now takes the form of a Latin cross superimposed on a Greek cross, paved with smooth stones set in diamond-shaped patterns. Side chapels were endowed by the guild of cofferers, who made dowry chests for Venetian brides, and the guild of fruit sellers, who dedicated a shrine to their patron, St. Jehosophat.

Among the church’s treasures is Bartolomeo Vivarini’s “Our Lady of Mercy” triptych (1473). With no need to rush off, I found my own favorites, including the wood-backed “Holy Father With Angels” (late 15th century, attributed to Lazzaro Bastiani) and an altar relief (1719) by Giuseppe Torretti, showing a decapitated St. Barbara, her head rolling on the ground.

Back outside, I looked into shops along the Calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa. At the Schegge atelier, I watched the owner paint handmade Carnival masks, while at Casa Mattiazzi Veneto, wine from casks was being sold in recycled plastic water bottles.

I discussed the derivation of the word “campo” with Luigi Frizzo, proprietor of the Acqua Alta bookstore, and made a dinner reservation at Osteria al Mascaron after seeing the squid and sardines on the antipasto counter.

Osteria al Mascaron -- from mascherone, a kind of talismanic monster sculpted on many facades in Venice -- is decorated with old copper pots, books and a picture of Elvis Costello. It was hot and stuffy the night I dined there, but the food transported me. After the olive oil-drenched antipasti, I had a perfect plate of pesto spaghetti with basil that tasted so fresh I could have sworn it was still growing.

About the time catechism class let out, I found a table at Zanzibar on the campo. I ordered a Spritz, made of white wine, soda water and a bitter-tasting aperitivo called Aperol. It doesn’t sound good, but once you get used to it, nothing else will do to cut the heat of a Venetian summer.

Zanzibar is close to the western flank of the church that bears one of the city’s most frightful mascheroni. John Ruskin, the opinionated 19th century authority on Venetian architecture, called it “too foul to be either pictured or described.” But after dinner and a Spritz, I quite liked it.

CAMPO SAN ZACCARIA, CASTELLO

Wise men do not come to Venice in the summer. Being neither male nor wise, here I was, sweating from every pore as I dragged my luggage from Campo Santa Maria Formosa to Campo San Zaccaria, five minutes as the crow flies or 15 through the maze of streets. If you get lost, you’ll just end up back at San Marco. All streets in Venice lead there, it seems.

At the Hotel Villa Igea, I was given a room that was stuffy even with the air conditioner on high, so I asked for and got a cooler chamber. It had a bathtub -- a rarity in modest Venetian hotels -- and came with an excellent breakfast buffet.

Best of all, the hotel was right on the campo, looking directly at the white Renaissance facade of the Church of San Zaccaria, which looks like a hairstyle worn by Marie Antoinette.

This campo is smaller and more dignified than Santa Maria Formosa, less a neighborhood living room than a thoroughfare for people headed to the vaporetto stop at the waterfront promenade of Riva degli Schiavoni. There are only a few businesses. An interesting antiques shop in part of the old churchyard closed the day I got there, and the man at a snack bar sadly told me he wasn’t allowed to put umbrella tables out front.

The campo narrows on the far side, where a carabinieri barracks occupies the old Convent of San Zaccaria, founded with the church around 1000. The convent was an old friend of Venice’s dukes, or doges, to whom it gave lavishly decorated ducal caps, the official headdress.

During the debauched 18th century, sisters wore pearls and entertained gentlemen, as depicted in “The Nuns’ Parlor at San Zaccaria” (1750), a painting by Francesco Guardi on display at the Ca’ Rezzonico Museum on the Grand Canal.

I could imagine them filing into the church next door, where Venice displayed its piety by decorating opulently. The walls of the nave and choir chapel are covered with huge paintings, mostly by 16th and 17th century masters, though the best is unarguably Giovanni Bellini’s peaceful little “Virgin and Child With Saints and Angel Musicians” (1506), taken to Paris as booty during the Napoleonic wars, then returned to Venice in 1816.

Architects admire San Zaccaria for its blending of Renaissance and Gothic features and for its oldest chapels, where a fragment of 9th century mosaic pavement can still be seen. A doubtful-looking stone staircase leads to the crypt, where some of Venice’s first doges are buried. It is traversed by a wooden boardwalk, attesting to high water in winters past.

Afterward, it was a shock to emerge onto the sun-blasted campo, where instinct led me to the nearby Rio dei Greci, settled by Greek immigrants. Their church, San Giorgio dei Greci, with its precariously canted campanile, is in an enclosure on the canal. Next door is a museum with a 17th century icon I especially liked that depicts the ascetic Christian saint Simeon Stylites, who lived for 37 years on the top of a pillar in Syria.

From there, I retraced my steps and took the Salizzada San Provolo to the Rio di Palazzo, a canal spanned by the Bridge of Sighs. People headed toward San Marco generally pass over the waterway, unaware that there is a Gothic gem nearby, the dreamy Benedictine cloister of Sant’Apollonia. On the floor above is a Diocese of Venice picture gallery, showcasing artworks from the city’s endangered and deconsecrated churches.

Outside, I joined the streaming crowd, went from shadow to bright light again, blinked hard and realized I was in the incomparable Piazza San Marco, along with all the other 18 million people who visit Venice every year, it seemed.

A vast banner obscuring the facade of the Sansovino Library showed tennis pro Roger Federer’s Rolex watch. Even the stone faces on the capitals at the Doge’s Palace looked stultified by the heat.

The only thing I could think to do was to retire to the roof terrace atop the fabled Hotel Danieli, occupying a 15th century palazzo on the Riva degli Schiavoni, where George Sand and Charles Dickens stayed. But my gin and tonic cost $30 and a pigeon stole one of my hazelnuts.

A refrigerated late afternoon nap restored my good humor, and when I woke I walked along the waterfront to the Arsenale, the renovated shipyard east of San Marco that hosts the Venice Biennale, Europe’s great showplace for contemporary art.

At the Teatro alle Tese, I stood in line for a ticket to a modern dance performance that ended just as the sun was melting into the boat basin.

I meant to go straight home. But along the way, I passed Al Covo, considered one of the best fish restaurants in Venice, so I stopped in. I will never forget my meal. It began with steamed mussels and zucchini flowers, followed by delicately fried, black ink-crusted baby squid, available only that week, the owner said.

CAMPO SAN BARNABA, DORSODURO

Guidebooks pay scant attention to the Campo San Barnaba, near the Ca’ Rezzonico Museum on the western side of the Grand Canal, perhaps because the 18th century church of the same name is somewhat forlorn.

Deconsecrated and emptied of its best art, it is an exposition space now, currently hosting a show on the whimsical machinery designs of Leonardo da Vinci.

A 10-minute walk from Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, with its divine “Assumption of the Virgin” (1516-1518) by Titian, and the Gallerie dell’Accademia in the other direction, the small square is found only by wandering.

It’s never crowded, which has endeared it to filmmakers. Katharine Hepburn fell into a canal here in “Summertime” (1955), and Harrison Ford sought the Holy Grail at San Barnaba in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989).

But the campo has its own stories to tell, some even verifiable, like the one about Lucrezia Contarini, who was attended by 150 ladies when she married the doge’s son at San Barnaba in 1441.

Another somewhat more doubtful tale concerns the noisy ghost of a French crusader whose mummy was unearthed nearby. Apparently, he got drunk and drowned in a canal before ever reaching Jerusalem.

The campo has a well, two restaurants with outdoor seating favored by students from the nearby Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and a floating greengrocery laden with blessings from the countryside.

The boat is permanently moored by the Ponte dei Pugni, where rival gangs once brawled and a man with a knife sometimes sits, expertly extracting artichoke hearts from their thorny coats of armor.

A string of shops and restaurants lines the Calle Lunga San Barnaba, which emanates from the southwestern corner of the campo. I especially liked the Pizzeria Al Profeta and a fabric store called Annelie Pizzi e Ricami that sells soft, white, cotton First Communion gowns.

I stayed at the Hotel Locanda San Barnaba on Calle del Traghetto, which runs between the campo and the Ca’ Rezzonico vaporetto stop on the Grand Canal. The best of all the hotels I tried, it has big, old-fashioned rooms without too much fake Venetian froufrou, a decorous parlor on the second floor and a terrace in back.

There was time to visit the Ca’ Rezzonico Museum in an elegant palazzo created in part by the great Venetian Baroque architect Baldassare Longhena. Devoted to the arts of the 18th century, it has marvelous, frothy ceiling frescoes so masterfully executed by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo that the allegorical figures he depicted seem to float in the sky above.

In another room, I found old friends dallying with cads in “The Nuns’ Parlor at San Zaccaria” by Francesco Guardi (about 1750). But I did not tax myself by following a checklist of great sites. Instead, I adopted the rhythm of a Venetian summer by spending the late afternoon quietly in my room, with the curtains drawn and one of Donna Leon’s addictive mystery novels set in the Lagoon City and featuring the wise and patient Venice police Commissario Guido Brunetti.

Church bells summoned me to the campo around 6 p.m., where people began to emerge, whistling, with shopping bags and a beautiful array of dogs, surely the best-loved domesticated creatures on Earth.

I thought about walking to San Marco but left the notion on the table along with the toothpick that had skewered the slice of orange in my Spritz.

So, I really can’t say how long the lines are at the Doge’s Palace this summer.

But I do know where to get artichoke hearts and First Communion gowns.

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susan.spano@latimes.com

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Planning this trip

THE BEST WAY

From LAX, connecting service to Venice is offered on Lufthansa, Air France, Alitalia, KLM, Delta, British, US Airways and Aer Lingus. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,170.

TELEPHONES

To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 39 (country code for Italy) and the local number.

CAMPO SANTA MARIA FORMOSA

WHERE TO STAY

Ruzzini Palace Hotel, Campo Santa Maria Formosa, 041-241-0447, www.ruzzinipalace.com, is a beautifully restored palazzo that was home to the Ruzzini family beginning in 1586. Luxurious rooms with a mixture of traditional and contemporary furnishings start around $300 a night.

Hotel al Piave, 4838-40 Ruga Giuffa , 041-528-5174, www.hotelalpiave.com, is a well-kept Venetian hotel that has numerous family-sized rooms; rates for standard doubles start around $210, including breakfast.

RESTAURANTS

Al Giardinetto da Severino, 4928 Ruga Giuffa, 041-528-5332, www.algiardinetto.it, has a vine-covered terrace and a well-rounded menu of Italian favorites; about $50 for two courses.

Osteria al Mascaron, on Calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa near the campo, 041-522-5995, is a wonderful spot known especially for its antipasti; about $50 for two courses.

CAMPO SAN ZACCARIA

HOTELS

Hotel Fontana, on Campo San Provolo, 041-522-0579, www.hotelfontana.it, is an amiable, family-run hotel with old-fashioned furnishings; doubles start around $85, including breakfast.

Hotel Villa Igea, Campo San Zaccaria, 041-241-0956, www.hotelvillaigea.it, has small but well-kept rooms. Doubles start around $230, including breakfast.

Liassidi Palace Hotel, 3405 Ponte dei Greci, 041-520-5658, www.liassidipalacehotel.com, occupies a 600-year-old Venetian palace restored with a contemporary flair; doubles start around $350, including breakfast.

RESTAURANTS

Al Covo, 3968 Campiello della Pescaria , 041-522-3812, offers rare and wonderful daily specials; about $75 for two courses.

Trattoria alla Rivetta, on Salizzada San Provolo by the bridge over the canal, 041-528-7302, is a tiny Venetian classic that serves meat, pasta and the house specialty, sardines in oil. About $40 for two courses.

CAMPO SAN BARNABA

HOTELS

Bed and Breakfast Fujiyama, 2727A Calle Lunga San Barnaba , 041-724-1042, www.bedandbreakfast-fujiyama.it, is in a quiet house; doubles start around $120, including breakfast.

Hotel Locanda San Barnaba, 2785-86 Calle del Traghetto, 041-241-1233, www.locanda-sanbarnaba.com, has big rooms and a handsome second-floor parlor; doubles start around $180, including breakfast.

Palazzo Stern Hotel, on the Grand Canal at Ca’ Rezzonico, 041-277-0869, www.palazzostern.com, is a newly opened and painstakingly restored palazzo with its own chapel ; doubles start around $280, including breakfast.

RESTAURANTS

Al Profeta, on Calle Lunga San Barnaba, 041-523-7466, serves an interesting array of pizzas, as well as meat dishes; pizza for one $10 to $15.

Antica Trattoria la Furatola, 2870A Calle Lunga San Barnaba, 041-520-8594, is a small, cheerful restaurant that serves fabulous seafood; about $50 for two courses.

Locanda da Montin, on the Fondamenta di Borgo, 041-522-7151, has a big, vine-bowered garden and homemade tagliatelle; about $50 for two courses.

TO LEARN MORE

Italian Government Tourist Board in Los Angeles, (310) 820-1898, www.italiantourism.com.

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