Description of the attraction
This monument combines the political, social and religious history of the Venetian Republic. The cathedral was built in 829 during the reign of Doge Giustiano Partechipazio to store the remains of the Evangelist Saint Mark, who became the sole patron of the city. After a fire in 927, the basilica was rebuilt in 1043-1071 by the Doge Domenico Contarini.
The lower part of the facade is 51.8 meters long, slightly pushed forward, and consists of five arched spans, with columns decorated with eastern capitals. The middle arch is wider than the others. The semicircles of the arches of the portals are covered with mosaics. Between the arches there are beautiful 12th century Byzantine bas-reliefs depicting the Virgin Mary, St. George, St. Dmitry, etc. The entire lower part is covered with a terrace surrounded by a balustrade. In the upper part, there are five arches covered with mosaics, decorated with fantastic Gothic spiers. The central arch is wider than other arches and is glazed, through which light enters the cathedral. The crowning element of the façade reveals five round vaults in the oriental style of the 13th century.
On the terrace, in front of the glazed central archway, there are four famous bronze horses, which at one time were gilded. This is a Greek masterpiece of the 4th-3rd centuries BC, which is attributed to Lysippos. These horses were brought to Venice from Constantinople by the Doge Enrico Dandolo in 1204 and were installed on the terrace in 1250. Recently, they have been restored to preserve the integrity of the bronze. The originals, currently in the Cathedral Museum, have been replaced with copies.
From the central portal you can get to the atrium - a beautiful gallery of colored mosaics. It is divided into arched spans with a dome. The walls have marble columns of various origins, some may have been brought from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The mosaics decorating arches, semicircles and domes depict episodes of the Old and New Testaments, as well as episodes from the history of Noah and the Flood. They were made by Venetian craftsmen of the 13th century.
The three-nave interior of the cathedral is divided by arched spans on marble columns with gilded capitals. According to the Eastern custom, the choir was separated from the temple by an iconostasis, decorated with polychrome marble, in eight columns supporting an architrave on which statues of the Virgin Mary and the Apostles are installed. The marble floor is in some places lined with mosaics and is uneven due to the subsidence of the soil into which the piles are driven and on which the cathedral rises.
One of the chapels houses the Madonna Nicopeia (Victorious), a 10th-century Byzantine icon that was brought to Venice after the fourth crusade in 1204.
The cathedral's main altar holds the remains of Mark the Evangelist in an urn behind bars. Above the main altar there is a real medieval jewelery masterpiece - Pala dOro ("Golden Image"). In 978, Doge Pietro Orseolo commissioned this altar to the masters of Constantinople. In 1105 it was altered by the order of the Doge Ordelafo Faliero, and in 1209 it was additionally enriched with Byzantine gold and enamel. The piece is 3.4 meters long and 1.4 meters wide, richly decorated with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, topazes.
In the center of the Baptistery there is a baptismal font made by Titian Minio, Desiderio da Firenze and Francesco Segala in the 15th century, after a drawing by Jacopo Sansovino. Segal also owns the statue of St. John the Baptist. Here, among the graves of famous doges, there is also the grave of Jacopo Sansovino. The Phoenician granite slab on which the altar stands may be the slab from which Christ preached. The mosaic covering the walls, vaults and domes was made by Venetian craftsmen in the 14th century and depicts episodes from the life of the Baptist and Jesus Christ.
