Although the antiques shops around San Maurizio and Santa Maria Zobenigo cater for the wealthier collectors, bargain hunters should be able to pick something up at the antiques fairs that crop up throughout the year in Campo San Maurizio, where the stalls groan under the weight of old books, prints, silverware and general bric-a-brac. (The tourist office will be able to tell you if one is due.) The traders in the San Barnaba district are also slightly downmarket, running the kind of places where you could find a faded wooden cherub or an old picture frame.

Although the antiques shops around San Maurizio and Santa Maria Zobenigo cater for the wealthier collectors, bargain hunters should be able to pick something up at the antiques fairs that crop up throughout the year in Campo San Maurizio, where the stalls groan under the weight of old books, prints, silverware and general bric-a-brac. (The tourist office will be able to tell you if one is due.) The traders in the San Barnaba district are also slightly downmarket, running the kind of places where you could find a faded wooden cherub or an old picture frame.

Alberto Bertoni , Rio Terrà degli Assassini 3637/b, San Marco. For remaindered and secondhand books, including a number of art-book bargains.

Ca' Foscarina , Campiello Squellini 3243, Dorsoduro. Good range of non-Italian titles amid a wide stock of generally academic books (the university is almost next door).

Cluva , Campo dei Tolentini 197, Santa Croce (San Polo section). Situated next to the university's architecture department, this unsurprisingly is the most comprehensive stockist of books on architecture.

Fantoni , Salizzada S. Luca 4121, San Marco. For the glossiest, weightiest and most expensive art books.

Filippi Editore Venezia , Caselleria 5284 and Calle del Paradiso 5762, both Castello. The family-run Filippi business produces a vast range of Venice-related facsimile editions, including Francesco Sansovino's sixteenth-century guide to the city (the first city guide ever published) and sells an amazing stock of books about Venice in its two shops.

Goldoni , Calle dei Fabbri 4742, San Marco. The best general bookshop in the city; also keeps an array of maps and posters.

Libreria della Toletta , Sacca della Toletta 1214, Dorsoduro. Sells reduced-price books, mainly in Italian, but some dual language and translations. Bargains on Electa art books.

Libreria Emiliana , Calle Goldoni 4487a, San Marco. A small shop, but well-stocked with books relating to Venice, and a selection of English-language titles.

Sangiorgio , Calle Larga XXII Marzo 2087, San Marco. A small but well-stocked art bookshop.

Sansovino , Bacino Orseolo 84, San Marco. Second only to Fantoni for books on art.

As you'd expect, many of the top-flight Italian designers and fashion houses - Versace, Missoni, Krizia, MaxMara, Trussardi, Gucci, Armani, Prada, Valentino and Dolce e Gabbana (the only ones with a local connection) - are represented in Venice, most of their outlets being clustered within a street or two of the Piazza. For those with wallets as deep as oil wells, the Mercerie , Frezzeria , Calle Goldoni , Calle Vallaresso and Calle Larga XXII Marzo are the most fruitful zones. The best shops for a range of high fashion are La Coupole (Frezzeria and Calle Larga XXII Marzo), Elysée (Frezzeria and Calle Goldoni), Al Duca d'Aosta (Merceria del Capitello), and La Fenice (Calle Larga XXII Marzo).

For more moderately priced clothes, there's the inevitable Benetton, Sisley and Stefanel (all with branches in the Mercerie), and Coin, a national department store based in Venice. Coin's home branch specializes in clothing, and is located between the Rialto and San Giovanni Crisostomo. The area between Campo San Bartolomeo and Santi Apostoli is well supplied with shops aimed at a young clientele, as is the line of streets running from Ruga Vecchia San Giovanni to San Polo , on the other side of the Canal Grande. None really stands out from the crowd, though.

The Venetian taste in clothes is pretty conservative, but more idiosyncratic stuff is sold at Fiorella, on Campo S. Stefano (San Marco), where the wacky jackets are beautifully made and wittily displayed - the mannequins have female bodies but their faces are modelled on portraits of the doges.

Venezia Studium - in Calle XXII Marzo 2425 (San Marco), Merceria S. Zulian 723 (San Marco) and Campo dei Frari 3006 (San Polo) - sells lamps, bags and scarves in Fortuny-style pleated velour and crepe. For real Fortuny fabrics, go to V. Trois, Campo S. Maurizio 2666, where they sell the luscious stuff manufactured over on La Giudecca, at L420,000 (?217) per metre

As with lace, for Venetian glass you're better off going to the main source of production, in this case Murano . The Piazza and its environs are prowled by well-groomed young characters offering free boat trips to the island - on no account accept, as you'll be subjected to a relentless hard sell on arrival. If you are in the market, just take the vaporetto to the Colonna stop and follow your eyes: the most expensive and most pretentious shops are to the fore, the rest stretch out beyond. Pseudo-artistic ornaments, extortionately expensive tableware and ranks of eye-bruising kitsch - a life-size bush with a cast of glass parrots - make up the bulk of the stock, but there are some more tasteful pieces on sale in the showrooms listed below. Unless stated otherwise, they are on Murano.

Barovier, Salizzada San Samuele 3216 (San Marco). Art gallery dealing in work from glass-blowers from all over the world. This place displays what is perhaps the most inventive and beautiful glass in Venice, and - contrary to appearances - the stuff is for sale, albeit at very high prices.

Barovier & Tosio , Fondamenta Vetrai 28. Not to be confused with the gallery listed above, this is a family-run firm which can trace its roots back to the fourteenth century. Predominantly traditional designs.

Berengo Fine Arts, Fondamenta Vetrai 109a, Fondamenta Manin 68 and Salizzada San Samuele 3337 (San Marco). This firm has pioneered a new approach to Venetian glass manufacture, with foreign artists' designs being vitrified by Murano glass-blowers.

Domus Vetri d'Arte, Fondamenta Vetrai 82. Stocks work by the major postwar Venetian glass designers, artists such as Barbini, Lino Tagliapietra, Ercole Moretti and Carlo Moretti.

L'Isola , Salizzada S. Moisè 1468, San Marco. Chiefly a showcase for work by Carlo Moretti, the doyen of modernist Venetian glass artists.

Murano Collezioni, Fondamenta Manin 1c. Outlet for work from the Venini, Moretti and Barovier & Toso factories.

Penso Davide, Fondamenta Cavour 48. The jewellery sold here is both manufactured and designed by the firm, which specializes in giving a new slant to traditional Murano styles.

Seguso, Piazza San Marco 143 and San Marco Frezzeria 1230-6. Traditional style and quality Murano glass, much of it created by proprietor Archimede Seguso, who is now in his eighties.

Venini , Fondamenta Vetrai 50 (Murano) and Piazzetta dei Leoncini 314 (San Marco). One of the more adventurous producers, Venini often employs designers from other fields of the applied arts.

Anticlea Antiquariato, Calle San Provolo 4719a, Castello. Specialising in the glass beads known as perle veneziane , with ready-made jewellery, or drawers of beads to choose from.

Codognato , Calle Secondo dell'Ascensione 1295, San Marco. One of the city's most expensive outlets, selling everything from antique pieces through to Art Deco brooches and modern designs.

Costantini, Calle Zaguri 2627, San Marco. Good array of perle veneziane sold individually, made into jewellery, or by the bag, plus various (and surprisingly cheap) antique African currency beads.

Laberintho, Calle Scalater 2236, San Polo. Tiny workshop specializing in inlaid earrings, necklaces and rings.

Missiaglia , Piazza San Marco 125, San Marco. Peerless, expensive gold and silver work from a firm that has a good claim to be Venice's classiest.

Nardi , Piazza San Marco 69-71, San Marco. Coral, tortoiseshell, ebony and other environment-abusing materials are the keynote of Nardi's production. Also makes some less objectionable if similarly overwrought gold objects.

Paolo Scarpa , Merceria S. Salvador 4850, San Marco. Gallery-like shop specializing in "primitive" jewellery from all corners of the planet.

Totem , Campo Carità 878b, Dorsoduro. As well as exhibiting and marketing 'tribal' art, Totem sells an intriguing range of jewellery made from ordinary materials, most of it inspired by African artefacts.

It's cheaper to buy lace on Burano than in the centre of Venice, but be warned that the cheapest stuff is machine-made and not from Burano either. The hand-made work sold at the island's Scuola dei Merletti is expensive, though not to a degree that's disproportionate to the hours and labour that go into making it. If you want an inexpensive example of the work, a little butterfly goes for about L15,000. In Venice itself, the most impressive shop is Jesurum at Merceria San Salvador 4857, San Marco, and also at Piazza San Marco 60-61; if that's out of your price range, try the vast Kerer showroom , installed in the Palazzo Trevisan-Cappello over the bridge at the rear of the Basilica di San Marco - it sells a wide range of lace, both affordable and exclusive.

Many of the Venetian masks on sale today are derived from the Carnevale of old: the ones representing characters from the Commedia dell'Arte (Pierrot, Harlequin, Columbine) for example, and the classic white half-mask called a volto , with a kind of beak over the mouth so the wearer could eat and drink. Although masks are worn only during the ten days of Carnevale, they are on sale all year round; most designs are conveyor-belt stuff, which you'll soon recognize - for genuinely crafted examples, go to one of the following.

Bottega dei Mascareri , Calle del Cristo 2919 (San Polo). Run for many years by the brothers Sergio and Massimo Boldrin, the Bottega dei Mascareri sells some wonderfully inventive masks, such as faces taken from Tiepolo paintings or Donald Sutherland in Fellini's Casanova .

Ca' Macana , Calle delle Botteghe 3172 (Dorsoduro). Huge mask shop, with perhaps the biggest stock in the city; has another branch on the other side of Campo San Barnaba, at Barbaria delle Tole 1169.

MondoNovo , Rio Terrà Canal 3063, Dorsoduro. This workshop, located just off Campo S. Margherita, is perhaps the most imaginative in the city, producing everything from ancient Greek tragic masks to portraits of Richard Wagner.

Tragicomica , Calle dei Nomboli 2800, San Polo. A good range and some nice eighteenth-century styles, as you might expect from a shop that's opposite Goldoni's house.

Many of the Venetian masks on sale today are derived from the Carnevale of old: the ones representing characters from the Commedia dell'Arte (Pierrot, Harlequin, Columbine) for example, and the classic white half-mask called a volto , with a kind of beak over the mouth so the wearer could eat and drink. Although masks are worn only during the ten days of Carnevale, they are on sale all year round; most designs are conveyor-belt stuff, which you'll soon recognize - for genuinely crafted examples, go to one of the following.

Bottega dei Mascareri , Calle del Cristo 2919 (San Polo). Run for many years by the brothers Sergio and Massimo Boldrin, the Bottega dei Mascareri sells some wonderfully inventive masks, such as faces taken from Tiepolo paintings or Donald Sutherland in Fellini's Casanova .

Ca' Macana , Calle delle Botteghe 3172 (Dorsoduro). Huge mask shop, with perhaps the biggest stock in the city; has another branch on the other side of Campo San Barnaba, at Barbaria delle Tole 1169.

MondoNovo , Rio Terrà Canal 3063, Dorsoduro. This workshop, located just off Campo S. Margherita, is perhaps the most imaginative in the city, producing everything from ancient Greek tragic masks to portraits of Richard Wagner.

Tragicomica , Calle dei Nomboli 2800, San Polo. A good range and some nice eighteenth-century styles, as you might expect from a shop that's opposite Goldoni's house.

As far as chic shoes, bags and wallets go, the shops around the Mercerie , Frezzeria and Calle Goldoni are not as expensive as they might first appear, and sales are a regular occurrence in the Mercerie. If you can afford the very best, on the other hand, you should take a look at Rolando Segalin, Calle dei Fuseri 4365 (San Marco) - established in 1932, this workshop produces wonderful handmade shoes, from sturdy brogues to whimsical Carnival footwear, such as leather shoes with toes. Delicate silk and velvet shoes, bags, hats and gloves are a speciality of Valeria Bellinaso, Campo Sant'Aponal (San Polo).

If money is no object, go browsing around Calle Vallaresso and Calle Larga XXII Marzo, where names such as Vogini and Bottega Veneta uphold the city's reputation as a market for immaculately produced leather goods. In Merceria dell'Orologio you'll find a big branch of Mandarina Duck, whose stylish and durable bags, often manufactured from rubber and heavy-gauge nylon, have become classic accessories all over Italy. For something unique to Venice, call in at Francis Model, Ruga Rialto 773a (San Polo), a father and son workshop that produces high-quality handbags and briefcases.

All manner of small handmade gifts in wood, tapestry and various other materials can be found at Toti Campizi in Calle Marcello, off Campo S. Marina (Castello). Jigsaw-like wooden objects - musical instruments, palace facades - are sold by Signor Blum at Campo S. Barnaba (Dorsoduro). Somewhat stranger wooden creations are on sale from the workshops of Livio de Marchi, in Salizzada S. Samuele (San Marco), and Loris Murazzi, on Campo S. Margherita (Dorsoduro): life-sized battered shoes and hanging items of underwear are among the more portable items, and if you have the transport you could take back a gigantic bundle of wooden paintbrushes. Models, model kits and elegantly drawn plans for Venetian boats are sold at La Scialuppa, Gilberto Penzo's shop at Calle Seconda Saoneri (San Polo).

Lastly, aficionados of souvenir kitsch can have a field day around the main tourist traps, especially the Lista di Spagna (Cannaregio): plastic gondolas set against blurred photos and fixed in illuminated plastic frames; gondolas that play O Sole Mio , gondola cigarette-lighters . . . the list is endless.