Venice Trip: Piazza San Marco

We made our way through the dense crowd to "The drawing room of Europe"  Piazza San Marco.  As we walked through the square, I didn't know which way to look, what to take a picture of.  There was so much.  Huge structures, small but amazing details and a large, bustling crowd that made taking photos difficult.

Entering the piazza from the lagoon side, you first pass between two pillars topped by statues of the patrons of Venice: a winged lion (the symbol of Saint Mark) and Saint Theodore of Amasea. This first little square is called the Piazzetta. The Doge's Palace (home of the elected leader of a "crowned republic") to the right is a gothic palace built in the early 14th century. It serves today as a museum.

Detail of the palace's balcony

St Mark's Campanile in the main part of the square is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica. It is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city. The tower was fiddled with over time, but reached its present form in 1514. One July morning in 1902, the brick campanile collapsed completely without warning and it seems to be a miracle that no one was killed. The tower was re-built exactly as it was.

The side of  Saint Mark's Basilica, located across the piazza from the belltower.  The basic structure of the church dates from 1063.  The basilica is one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture.  The church is knows as the "Church of Gold" for its opulent design, gilded Byzantine mosaics, and status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power, from the 11th century on.

Closeup of the side of the basilica. Click on the photo to see some of the gold mosaic work.

Details on the front of the basilica. Do you see the four bronze horses? The originals date from the first century AD and are thought to have been part of an arch dedicated to the Emperor Trajan. The horses were displayed in Constantinople until 1204 when the Doge sent them back to Venice as part of the loot sacked from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. The horses were installed on the basilica in about 1254. They were then brought to Paris by Napoleon in 1797 but returned to Venice in 1815. Since the 1990s they have been kept in St Mark’s Museum (inside the basilica) and the horses now on the façade of the church are bronze replicas.

Unfortunately, there was a great deal of scaffolding on the front the basilica that made it difficult to visualize what the front façade should look like. Once again, other people's travel photos on the internet comes through for me.

A winged lion watching us from the top of the basilica. James had informed us before we arrived in Venice that the winged lion was the symbol of Venice and I had read somewhere that tourists like to count how many such lions they see around the city. I thought I might take as many pictures as I could of them. But why a winged lion?

In the ninth century, a few representatives from Venice stole the remains of St. Mark the Apostle from his tomb in Alexandria, Egypt. During their return voyage across the Mediterranean, a great storm arose. Saint Mark then appeared to the captain and warned him to raise all his sails immediately or else the ship would be wrecked upon hidden rocks. The grave robbers owed their safety to this miracle and after reaching Venice and handing over their cargo over to the Doge, the local authorities quickly elected St. Mark as Venice's patron saint. The apostle's traditional symbol--a winged lion--became the logo of the Venetian Republic. The symbol comes from St. Mark's description of John the Baptist's voice "crying out in the wilderness" upon hearing the Word of God. His voice is said to have sounded like that of a roaring lion. The winged lion is often seen holding the Holy Book.

Another winged lion on an archway to the side of the basilica.

We joined the long, long line that snaked around the basilica and along the side of the Doge's Palace to see the inside of the basilica. David pointed several sets of pillars on the side of the church, each with four differently colored marble.  All throughout the church, there are such pillars, showing off the wealth of Venice by importing marble from all over the world.

Looking back at the lagoon from our thankfully swiftly moving line into the basilica.  No photography was allowed inside the awe-inspiring church, but as we walked through, there were plenty of people disregarding the ban.  We were scandalized by their disregard of the rules (and in a church!), but I was just itching to pull my camera out of my pocket, but didn't.  Entry into the church was free, but you had to pay a couple of Euros to see the "extras" such as a closeup of the altar, the view of Venice from the balcony, saints relics, the museum, etc.  All those Euros add up when you have four kids, so we just walked through the main part of the basilica, marveling at all the gold.

Ah, my favorite building in Venice! Adjacent to the basilica is St Mark's Clocktower which houses the most important clock in the city, St Mark's Clock. It was constructed between 1496 and 1499 as a display of Venice's wealth, and as an aid to sailors on the Grand Canal about to depart on a voyage.

At the bottom of the tower is a two-story gateway that leads you to a lane with very, very expensive shops.

Above the gateway is the clock. The clock mechanism, dating from 1499, drives the main clock face, which consists of several concentric dials. The outermost displays the number 1 to 24 in Roman numerals, and a hand embellished with a depiction of the sun indicates the hour. The second dial depicts the twelve signs of the zodiac, picked out, like the inner dials, in gilt on an enamel blue background. The inner dials indicate the phases of the moon and sun.  This elaborate timepiece is in full working order.  Hmmm, I wonder if I can find a replica of this clock on-line.

The mechanism also moves a display above the clockface, where a niche with a depiction of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus lies between two displays: the hour in Roman numerals and the minutes (in multiples of five) in Arabic numerals. On Ascension Day, statues of the three kings pass in front of the displays.

Yes, that's the Lion of St Mark against the night sky. This clocktower lion was my favorite lion in all of Venice: the perfect mixture of power and patience as he gazed down at us.

Two blackened bronze figures intended as giants but known as the "Moors" stand on top and ring a bell on the hour, which we got to see, being in the right place at the right time by chance.