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St. Mark's Square - 'the
finest drawing room in the world'
St. Mark's Square is the centre of Venetian civic life.
The piazza was created in the twelfth century at a moment
when Venice faced financial ruin, yet the Venetians reached
into their own pockets to create what Napoleon dubbed
'the finest drawing room in the world' - a showpiece for pageants,
processions, political activities and countless carnival festivities.
The piazza and its two flanking piazzette have looked essentially
the same since 1810 when the Napoleonica was added
to the west end to close in Mauro Codussi's long arcade.
The fifth century Procuratie Vecchie lies on the north
side and the sixteenth century Sanovino's Procuratie Nuove
on the south. Inside and outside these elegant buildings there
is plenty to entertain with elegant cafés, open air
orchestras, and smart boutiques beneath the arcades of the
Procuratie.
St. Mark's Basilica
As a result of its unique location, the city's commercial
and navy fleets became the most powerful in the Adriatic.
But what the Venetian Republic lacked was a spiritual figurehead
to give them power which would match any city in Europe, so
they stole one of the most sacred relics of the medieval world
- St. Mark from Alexandria in Egypt. These relics
are housed in St. Mark's Basilica, one of the greatest
treasures of the Western world although its Eastern-style
architecture may be more reminiscent of Istanbul.
Building work on the first chapel to mark the arrival of
St Mark began in AD 828. Modelled on Constantinople Church
of the Twelve Apostles, it embodies a magnificent blend
of different architectural and decorative styles, dominated
by Byzantine and ranging through to Gothic and
Renaissance. St. Mark's is one of the most spectacular
houses of worship in the world, attesting to the Venetian
Republic's former maritime and commercial strength. The mosaics
above the doorways depict the stealing of St. Mark's corpse.
The story goes that two Venetian merchants persuaded the guardians
of his Alexandrian tomb to let them have the corpse, which
they smuggled into their ship and covered in pork to prevent
inspection from the Muslim customs inspectors.
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