Riva dei Sette Martiri is a monumental shore located in the Castello district. It runs along the part of the San Marco basin between the Arsenale and the Giardini della Biennale and is an extension of the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Originally called "Riva dell'Impero", it was built during the twenty years of fascism with celebratory intent and took the place of the long sequence of squeri and shipyards that had operated in the area for centuries. Its inauguration took place on March 23, 1937. The shore, very wide and without parapets, begins at the entrance to Via Garibaldi and is connected to the Riva di San Biagio by the Veneta Marina bridge.
During the Second World War it was the scene of a tragic episode of reprisal against the partisan forces by the German army. Following the disappearance of one of its soldiers (who was later discovered to have drowned after falling into the water while drunk), the German command decided to shoot seven political prisoners in retaliation, held in the prisons of Santa Maria Maggiore. On the morning of August 3, 1944, the seven were tied to each other between the first two street lamps on the shore, just at the foot of the Veneta Marina bridge, and shot there. Before the execution, German troops rounded up over 500 residents of the neighborhood, with a high concentration of anti-fascists, forcing them to watch the shooting. The bodies were left exposed for several days as a warning. At the end of hostilities, with the end of the fascist regime and the establishment of the Italian Republic, in memory of this episode the Municipality of Venice changed its name to its current name.