Venice Around Piazza San Marco

The heart and pulse of Venice is Piazza San Marco, or as Napoleon called it, “Europe’s Grand Drawing Room.” Venice was an economic and political power because it controlled the seas, specifically the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. The Venetians, in my mind to put it simply, were in the import and export business and made money off of it. It was at the crossroads of the East (Byzantium and Asia) and West (Europe). I’m a bit shaky on the history, so I’ll leave that for others to fill in on their own, but what I do know is that Venetian supremacy began to wane after the Americas were discovered and the trade began to flow to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean was no longer the center of the world.

Piazza San Marco houses The Correr Museum, which has a great history of Venice. Here’s an old map of Venice from the 1500’s.

As we all know, I am obsessed with Augustus. Venice was a part of the Roman Empire and archeological digs have found items that are from that time. Here’s a picture of a coin issued by Augustus.

In the late 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire was starting to fall apart. Diocletian split the Empire into eastern and western halves and installed a tetrarchy. This porphyry statue of the four tetrarchs is placed in at the corner of St. Marks. Check off seeing another piece I’ve studied in Art History.

The most powerful man in Venice (and thereby probably the world at the time) was the doge. Chosen from one of the significant Venetian families, he lived here the palace..

It’s must have been quite a sight to be a visitor to Venice and see this building as the home of the great doge

The columns seem a bit short, eh? It’s due to the fact that Venice is sinking and so the ground has been built up around the base of the columns.

This is the grand entrance to the doge’s palace.

At the top on the left is Neptune. Doesn’t Neptune look EXACTLY like Paul Newman?

The doge’s palace was the residence of the doge, but also the political center and hall of justice. A prison was built across a small canal from the doge’s palace and so when a person was convicted, they were walked to the prison over this bridge. Someone stated that the convict’s walk included a “sigh” as they faced their imprisonment.

Next to the Doge’s Palace is St. Mark’s Basilica. Note it’s not name a church because it is built with a Byzantine central plan

This is a painting of what St. Mark’s looks like without the clutter that now stands in front of it. Note the three lateral domes. What you can’t see is that there are three domes going away from the viewer as well.

Looking inside, you can see the three naves. The amazing gold mosaics are phenomenal and totally Byzantine. By the way, I know (by way of the Rick Steves' book, how to avoid the line getting into St. Marks.)

The gold is to sparkle and stun the viewer, just as it did here as I was at St. Marks and rays of the sun shone through and lit up the basilica to a color and glow that a camera simply could not capture.