Ponte delle Tette

Listen first. Somewhere close by, a boat engine idles and goes quiet. Water slaps softly against old brick. The steps under your feet are worn smooth in the middle, polished by centuries of shoes. You are standing on one of the smallest bridges in Venice, in a corner of the San Polo district that most visitors pass without noticing. And yet this modest little crossing carries one of the most talked-about names in the whole city.

The name is Ponte delle Tette. In plain English, that means the Bridge of the Breasts. People usually smile when they hear it, and that reaction is fair. But the name is not a modern joke or a tourist invention. It comes from the real history of this neighbourhood, and from the way the Venetian Republic once tried to manage one of its oldest trades.

Look around at the scale of things. The canal below is narrow, barely wide enough for two small boats to pass. The houses lean close on both sides, their walls stained in bands of ochre, rust and pale pink where the water has risen and fallen. Shutters open and close above you. This is not the grand Venice of palaces on the Grand Canal. It is the working Venice, tight and domestic and lived-in.

For centuries, this part of San Polo was known as the Carampane. The name is usually traced to the Rampani, a family whose houses, or Ca', stood here. Over time, the area became one of the places where the city's prostitutes lived and worked. You can still find the name today on the painted street signs nearby. Venetians call these signs nizioleti, which means little sheets, because they look like white cloths painted on the walls.

Venice was a trading city, full of sailors, merchants and travellers from across the Mediterranean and beyond. The authorities of the Republic were practical people. Rather than pretend prostitution did not exist, they tried to regulate it, tax it and keep it in certain districts. Earlier, a building near the Rialto served as an official centre for the trade. Later, much of that activity shifted into these lanes around the Carampane.

Now comes the story behind the bridge's name. According to the popular tale, women in this district would sit at open windows or stand on balconies near the bridge with their breasts bared, to attract passing customers. Some versions go further. They say the city authorities actively encouraged this display. The aim, the story goes, was to turn men's attention back toward women at a time when officials worried about rising homosexuality in the city.

It is worth being careful here. That second part of the story is repeated in nearly every guidebook, but it is told far more often than it is documented. What is certain is that the Republic did pass laws about how prostitutes dressed, where they lived and when they could appear in public. The bare-breasted window display is best treated as local tradition, a story Venice tells about itself, half history and half legend.

Here is something many visitors miss. Venice did not treat all women in this trade the same way. At the top were the cortigiane oneste, the so-called honest courtesans. These were educated women who could discuss poetry, play music and hold their own in conversation with nobles and diplomats. The most famous of them, Veronica Franco, lived in the sixteenth century and published her own poems. She was a world away from the women working in these narrow lanes.

Another surprise. In the sixteenth century, printed catalogues circulated in Venice listing the city's courtesans, with names and neighbourhoods. Travellers wrote home about them. For a time, Venice had a reputation across Europe as a city of pleasure, a place where rules seemed looser than at home. The streets around this bridge were part of that reputation, even if the reality for most of the women who lived here was hard and poor.

Now look down at the bridge itself. Like most small Venetian bridges, it is low and gently arched, so that boats can slip underneath. Notice how the edges of the steps are often marked in pale stone. This helps feet find their place, especially at night or in fog. Many Venetian bridges once had no railings at all. People simply walked carefully, and now and then, someone fell into the canal.

Stand still for a moment and watch the water traffic. Delivery boats pass here carrying crates of vegetables, cases of wine, building materials, even rubbish collected from the houses. Gondolas glide through too, the gondoliers calling out at blind corners to warn other boats. The Rialto market is a short walk away, and much of the life of this area still flows from it, just as it did when the Carampane was at its busiest.

The neighbourhood today is quiet and residential. Laundry hangs between windows. A few small restaurants and bars sit in the lanes, and in the evening you may hear plates and conversation spilling out of open doors. The old reputation has faded into street names and stories. What remains is a piece of ordinary Venice, where people live above the water and cross this little bridge every day without a second thought.

Before you move on, look up once more at the windows overlooking the canal. Imagine them open, centuries ago, with voices calling down to the passing boats. Then look back at the water, at the green light it throws up onto the brick, at the worn steps under your feet. As you walk away into the lanes of San Polo, watch for the white painted street signs. Each one is a small clue to the people who once lived here.