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Great Discoveries "Personal Tour Guides" will provide you with the most enjoyable and informative way to visit the Piazza San Marco. Our carefully researched tour identifies and locates the most relevant treasures to ensure that you do not miss important works and that you clearly understand each items artistic and historic significance. As you view these carefully selected treasures, our professional narrators, accompanied by historically appropriate background music, will delight, amuse and inform you, making your visit a most memorable experience. Learn about the world's most photographed square, once described by Napoleon as the "finest drawing room in Europe," with informative descriptions, photo's, building diagrams, sample audio tracks, and more.
Piazza San Marco is a majestic trapezoid shaped space whose sheer scale alone defies one's senses. It is as overwhelming as it is exhilarating; overwhelming for its size and the hordes of tourists it holds, and exhilarating because, as squares go, this one is nearly perfect in its shape and architectural details. The symmetry and beauty of St. Mark’s Basilica and its Bell Tower (or Campanile) can leave even the most callused traveler dumbstruck. On a sunny day the sun reflects off the Basilica’s mosaics, creating a golden glow which reinforces the myths and stories surrounding the history of this magnificent edifice.
In Venice, where space is at a premium, the Piazza San Marco measures an astounding 180 feet in length by 65 feet in width on its western side, and 85 feet in width on its eastern side. Running the length of the Piazza’s northern side, from the eastern side Napoleonic Wing, home of the Correr Museum, to the Clock Tower on its western edge, is the stately Procuratie Vecchio, meaning Old Magistrate, building. The Procuratie Vecchio building has fifty arches on the ground floor level and two upper floors of loggias. It was built in the early 16th century and has retained its Renaissance appearance.
Grandiose buildings and monuments define the boundaries of the Piazza, destined from its inception to be the social, administrative, religious, and commercial hub of the city. On its western side stands the Basilica di San Marco (St. Mark’s Basilica), a uniquely Venetian Byzantium - Gothic building that was completed in 1094. It is a stunning structure, topped by five impressive domes, famous for its intricately decorated mosaics, both inside and out, for its four gilded bronze horses, and for its Pala d’Oro altarpiece. The Basilica di San Marco houses the body of Venice’s patron saint, St. Mark.
Next to the Basilica, on the waterfront, stands the Palazzo Ducale, or Doge Palace. This luxurious palace was constructed in 1419. The Palazzo is an amazingly strong, secular symbol, although the building itself was not fortified. At the end of the square towers the tallest structure in Venice, the Campanile, or Bell Tower. The Bell Tower standing today is a replacement for the original, which collapsed on its weak foundation in 1902. Several museums also are found on the Piazza, including the Libreria Sansoviniana, or the Library of Sansoviniana, and the Correr Museum.
The easily recognized buildings, immediately on the Piazza, attract millions of visitors seeking photo opportunities. Though the gawking tourists may seem out of place, the square has bustled with merchants, natives and visitors since its creation. Its accessible location on the Grand Canal and the waterfront made it a strategic site for administrative and trade transactions. European battega del cafe or coffee houses, which originated in the Piazza, can also be found around the square.
What is not allowed, by agreement of all political parties after World War II, was any political rally or demonstration. This is a Piazza decreed by law to be a place of peace and beauty.
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Piazza
San Marco is the place most dear to the hearts of all Venetians, as well as to the hearts of the city's thousands of annual visitors.
The great cities of the world - London, Rome, Paris, New York, Beijing
and Moscow all have their famous public squares or spaces. Whether
it’s Times Square, Trafalgar Square or Tienenmen Square, each
city is at least partially defined by its urban open space. Not
to be outdone, tiny Venice Italy has its magnificent square, the Piazza
San Marco which was once described by Napoleon, as the “finest
drawing room in Europe.” According to most Venetians it is
the only place in the city “worthy of having the sky for its
roof.”
The
Procuratie Vecchio, or Old Magistrate, building was so named to
distinguish it from its later copy the Procuratie Nouve, or New
Magistrate, building which was built directly across the square
creating a state of elegant harmony and balance. The Procuratie
Nuove which runs along the south side of the square attaches to
the Libreria Sansoviniana, which was designed in 1584 by Jacopo
Sansovino, at the request of the Venetian Republic, to house the documents
and books donated to it by Cardinal Bessarione.
It
was here in the Piazza that the newly elected doges, the leaders of
Venice, were honored with processions as they threw handfuls of gold
ducats (coins) to the crowds. Festivals and religious observations
took place here. Jousts and mock battle tournaments on horseback
were held here during the Renaissance; seemingly unlikely sports
for this nation of sailors. One doge, Michele Steno, was so taken
with the sport of jousting that he had a stable of 400 horses all
dyed saffron-yellow, his favorite color. One event held here that
was loved by the citizenry was the “Turkish tightrope.”
Daring aerialists walked a tightrope from the top of the bell tower
to a boat anchored in St. Mark’s Basin.
for your first sample before playing the second sample, or you
will not hear it.
