San Marco di Venezia

St. Mark's Cathedral or San Marco Basilica (San Marco di Venezia in the Italian language) is the most prominent church in of the city of Venice. It is located on the Piazza San Marco, adjacent and connected to the Doge's Palace. It is a notable example of Byzantine architecture. An earlier version of the present Basilica was built on this site in 829, when Venetian merchants acquired the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria. In the 11th century it was remodelled in imitation of the Basilica of the Apostles at Constantinople. It has served as the city's Cathedral since the 12th century. The succeeding centuries, especially the fourteenth, all contributed to its adornment, and seldom did a Venetian vessel return from the Orient without bringing a column, capitals, or friezes, taken from some ancient building, to add to the fabric of the basilica. Its whole pavement is mosaic; it contains gold, bronze, and the greatest variety of stones. The façade is decorated with mosaics of different periods, Byzantine sculptures, and statues of the Evangelists and the Saviour. The four horses of gilded bronze above the great doorway (see note 1. below) date to Classical Antiquity; by some accounts they once adorned the Arch of Trajan. The horses were long displayed at the Hippodrome in Constantinople, and in 1204 Doge Enrico Dandolo sent them back to Venice as part of the loot sacked from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. The mosaics of the atrium and the interior belong partly to the tenth century. The plan of the interior consists of three longitudinal and three transverse naves. Over the high altar is a baldacchino on columns decorated with eleventh-century reliefs; the altarpiece is the famous Pala d'oro (Golden Pall), Byzantine metal-work of the year 1105, originally designed for an antependium. Behind the high altar is another altar with alabaster columns. The choir stalls are embellished with inlaying by Fra Sebastiano Schiavone, and above them on both sides are three reliefs by Sansovino. On the two marble pulpits of the ambo are statuettes by the Massegne brothers (1394). Also in the choir are Sansovino's bronze statutes of the Evangelists and Caliari's of the Four Doctors. The crypt is underneath the choir. (1. Sadly, the horses now on the facade of the cathedral are no more than fibreglass replicas. The magnificent originals have been incarcerated in a small, dark, room inside the basilica - supposedly to protect them from atmospheric pollution)

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\n* Cathedral of San Marco, Venice Category:BasilicasCategory:Venice