The waterways, 150 in all, are divided into _canali_ and _rii_. The _canale_ is the broader, the _rio_ the narrower stream. The _rii_ are by far the greater in number. But the pedestrian is more concerned with street nomenclature. A _fondamenta_ is a way alongside a _canale_ or _rio_; a _calle_ is a street with houses on either side; _ruga_ or _rughetta_ (French _rue_, _ruelle_) was first applied to streets with a few new houses here and there; the appellation was retained in later times when the houses or shops became continuous; a _salizzada_ is one of the earliest of the paved streets, generally near a church; a _rio terra_, a _rio_ filled up and paved; a _piscina_, a fish-pond treated in the same way; a _ponte_, a bridge; a _campo_, a paved, open place, formerly a field; a _campiello_, a smaller _campo_; a _corte_, a court. Avoid a _vico cieco_, or a _viccolo cieco_, which have no thoroughfare. The city is divided into six _sestieri_ or wards, subdivided into _parocchie_ or parishes. The houses are numbered by _sestieri_, the numbers reaching to thousands. The Merceria, a crowded thoroughfare, leads from under the Clock Tower in St Mark's Square, after many kinks and turns, to the Rialto bridge over the Grand Canal, which is spanned by two other bridges about equidistant from the Rialto bridge. E. and W. of the Rialto, in addition to these bridges, numerous ferries (_traghetti_) make either bank of the Grand Canal easy of access, and small steamers (_vaporetti_) call at frequent piers the whole length of the chief waterway. Travelling by gondola, therefore, is to be regarded as a luxury rather than a necessity. The gondola bears the same relation to Venetian life as does the cab or carriage to the dweller in an ordinary town. The average tide is about twenty inches: on exceptional occasions, the difference between high and low tides has been six feet.
The Piazza of S. Marco offers to the traveller a scene of unparalleled interest. Eastwards it is adorned by the most wonderful group of Byzantine and Gothic architecture in Europe. To the N. is the rhythmic symmetry of Pietro Lombardo's Procuratie Vecchie, ending with the Clock Tower[80]; to the S. are the Procuratie Nuove, Scamozzi's tasteless elaboration of Sansovino's lovely design for the Libreria Vecchia on the Piazzetta. Westward is the baser structure of Napoleonic times. Opposite the Porta della Carta of the Ducal Palace stood for a thousand years the old Campanile, like a giant sentinel set towards the lagoons to watch over the city. On the morning of July 14th, 1902, to the stupefaction of the Venetians, the huge tower, which in its massive strength seemed to defy the tooth of time, gently collapsed, as though weary of its millennial watch, crushing in its fall Sansovino's beautiful Loggetta and the N. side of the Libreria Vecchia, but miraculously doing no further hurt. When the Venetians recovered from the shock and learned how mercifully exempt from toll of human life the disaster had been, and that St Mark's and the Ducal Palace were unscathed, they remembered their protector and said: _È stato galant'uomo S. Marco_ (St Mark has been a good fellow). Ten months later, when the King and Queen of Italy, during their visit to Venice, turned to look at the site of the old tower, a lament was heard in the crowd of people: _I varda dove gera el nostro pavaro morto_ (They are going where our poor dead one lies). The foundations laid a thousand years before, were found to be as sound as ever, and a new Campanile has now been raised to replace, though it cannot restore, the old one, which, with all its dramatic history and romantic associations, has disappeared for ever.