St. Mark's Basilica

The Basilica di San Marco (St. Mark's Cathedral) in Venice, Italy

*** Basilica di San Marco / St. Mark's Cathedral
Piazza San Marco
Vaporetto: San Zaccaria, San Marco-Giardinetti, or San Marco-Vallaresso
tel. +39-041-522-5205
www.basilicasanmarco.it
Book a tour: Viator.com
Closed Sunday morning to non-worshippers

Viator.com tours
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with St Mark's Basilica
• Skip the Line: St Mark's Square Highlights Tour
• Skip the Line: Venice in One Day

Sights nearby
*** Piazza San Marco [square]
* Campanile di San Marco [belltower]
*** Palazzo Ducale [palace/museum]
*** Grand Canal [sight]
Museo Civio Correr [museum]
Bacino Orseolo [gondola parking lot]

Where to eat nearby
***Bistrot de Venise [meal]
*Da Aciugheta [meal/pizza]
**Osteria a la Campana [light meal]
**Vino Vino [light meal]
Rosticceria Teatro Goldoni [light meal/snack]

Hotels nearby
Reid Recommends***Hotel Danieli [splurge]
Reid Recommends**Hotel ai do Mori [moderate]
Reid Recommends**Hotel Violino d'Oro [moderate]
» More hotels in San Marco

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Fun & Inspiration

St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice (they're agressively trying to do somethgin about all the pigeons).
St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. (Yes, the city is trying to do something about all the pigeons.)Let's just come out and say it: there simply is no church in Europe more lavishly decorated, more exquisitely mosaicked, more glittering with gold than San Marco, the cathedral of Venice.

Built in the 11th century, St. Mark's guiding principle in architecture and decoration is Byzantine, but Romanesque and Gothic styles have left their mark as well over six centuries of expansion and decoration.

The atrium, ceilings, walls, and multiple domes are all encrusted with over 40,000 square feet of gold-backed mosaics crafted between the 12th and 17th centuries.

The oldest of these mosaics were created by Eastern masters, and later ones were based on cartoons by Tintoretto, Veronese, and Titian.

The glittering gold mosaics of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. (Photo by
The glittering gold mosaics of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. (Photo by Ricardo André Frantz)The floor is a reflection of the mosaic craft in marble, an undulating wonderland of color and pattern.

The church's most disappointing aspect is that it's so popular and its lines so long you are shuffled through like sightseeing cattle, kept moving along so the next batch of tourists can cram in. Still, your time inside will be unforgettable.

Don't miss popping into the baptistery alcove, with a font carved by Sansovino, or checking out the presbytery (space behind the main altar) with its Pala d'Oro, a gem-studded golden trophy altar from Constantinople.

The Marciano Museum upstairs

Above the church proper and entered through the atrium is the Marciano Museum (a.k.a. Loggia dei Cavalli, the Loggia of the Horses), which gets you up onto a balcony and affords you a close-up look at some of those mosaics. It also houses the original Triumphal Quadriga of four horses, replicas of which stride across the facade's roof.

San Marco Ground Rules
(1) Dress appropriately—no bare shoulders or knees (i.e. no shorts, short skirts, or tank tops).
(2) Keep silent.
(3) This brings a disappointed groan out of everyone, but positively no photography is permitted. I know. It makes me angry, too.

These life-size bronze equines are one of Venice's treasures. Taken in 1204 from Constantinople during the crusades, their origin is murky, but they're at least ancient (AD 2nd century is the best guess), either Roman or Hellenistic.

Why is it called St. Mark's?

In 828 a group of Venetian merchants were visiting Alexandria. In Alexandria rested the bones of the famous and oh-so-holy St. Mark the Evangelist. So, of course, the merchants decided to steal him.

This was era when acquiring bits of bona fide saints was de rigueur for relic hunters. Most settled for the finger bone of St. Elias, or the shriveled skull of St Catherine, or a fragment of the ulna of St. Luke. The Venetians figured: what would be better to carry home in patriotic triumph than a bit of St. Mark? All of him!

Time to Get Religion
My favorite time to visit St. Mark's? A Sunday at 6:45pm—for mass. Mass? Yep. While the priest drones in singsong Latin at the altar, incense swirling around him from a swaying censor, you can sit in silence for an hour getting a crick in your neck. That's because, only during the evening mass, the 40,000 square feet of glittering mosaics —which appear smoke-stained and shadowy by day—are illuminated to their full glittering glory. Only one rule: Tourists are not allowed, so you must be discreet, arrive on time, stay in your pew, and sit quietly through to the end.

According to legend, the merchants exhumed the Evangelist's remains and smuggled them out of town in a barrel of pickled pig parts, cleverly banking on the fact that Mulsim proscription against even touching pork would help them slip through inspections.

The merchants returned home with their prize, and the city promptly set about building an appropriately extravagant chruch to house the holy remains. The reult: St Mark's Basilica (and the adopotion of Mark's iconic winged lion as the new symbol of the city—you'll see it everywhere).

The audacity of the Venetians kick started something of a grisly competition between Italy's hyper-competitive maritime capitals to see who could steal the best saint then build a cathedral around his bones. In 1087 Bari, in Apulia, countered by nicking the 4th century Turkish bishop St. Nicola di Myra, a.k.a. St. Nicholas, a.k.a. Santa Claus. In 1206, Amalfi entered the fray by taking home the bones of St. Andrew after the Sack of Constantinople.

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This material was last updated April 2009. All information was accurate at the time.

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