San Marco is one of the six sestieri of Venice, lying in the heart of the city as the main place of Venice. The little spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice. San Marco now is the tourist heart of Venice, home to iconic sights. Many traditional festivals in Venice have been centered on St. Mark’s Square.
The San Marco district is bordered to the north by the Grand Canal; to the south, where the Piazza overlooks the Venice Lagoon, from the San Marco basin; to the west from the Rio di Palazzo; east from the Rio di San Giuliano. The sestiere borders to the north with the Cannaregio district and to the east with the Castello district while it connects to the San Polo district via the Rialto Bridge and to the Dorsoduro district via the Accademia Bridge. From an administrative point of view, the San Marco district also includes the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.
San Marco is a famous tourist destination, This area gathers the most magnificent wealth accumulated in the thousand-year history of the Republic of Venice, including St Mark’s Square, Saint Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, and so on. St. Mark’s Basilica is the leading tourist attraction, a Byzantine style architecture, with spectacular gold mosaics and sculptures. Before the five arched portals of the basilica lies the Piazza San Marco. The Campanile, the bell tower slightly rectangular structure sheathed in Venetian red-clay brick, it dominates the townscape and is visible for miles across the lagoon.
The small district includes other many of Venice’s most famous sights, including Harry’s Bar, the Palazzo Dandolo, Palazzo D’Anna Viaro Martinengo Volpi di Misurata, San Moisè, the La Fenice theatre, the Palazzo Grassi and Palazzo Bellavite, and the churches of San Beneto, San Fantin, Santa Maria del Giglio, San Maurizio, San Moisè, Santo Stefano, San Salvador, San Zulian, San Samuele and so on.
Due to the large number of tourists, this area is also the commercial center of Venice, and there are many hotels, banks and expensive shops, and the restaurants on and around St. Mark’s Square offer multilingual menus for the international crowd. The surrounding streets are filled with casual snack bars, upscale fashion boutiques and shops selling glass art and gift items.
History
The San Marco district, originally called Rivoalto, hence the name Rialto, is the original nucleus of the city. The heart of the district is Piazza San Marco, which for almost a millennium was the political and judicial center of the Republic of Venice. The square was built and developed on the area occupied by the ancient vegetable gardens (Brolo) cared for by the nuns of the nearby convent of San Zaccaria, around the two churches originally present in this area, the church of San Teodoro (first patron saint of Venice).
The Basilica of San Marco originally located approximately halfway along the current square, in front of the Basilica. With the widening of the square, the Church of San Geminiano was then rebuilt at the height of the current Napoleonic Wing, now part of the Correr Museum. In the year 828 the fishermen Buono da Malamocco and Rustego da Torcello stole the body of St. Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria in Egypt and brought it to Venice where it is still preserved in the Basilica dedicated to him. Since then the saint became the patron saint of the city and gave the name to the square. The statues on the columns of San Marco and San Todaro both remember the patron saints of the city.
Main Attractions
St Mark’s Square in Venice is one of the most famous squares in the world. The two most important buildings on the square are the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Basilica. Another important building is the St Mark’s Campanile, the landmark of Venice. The famous Canal Grande waterway flows into the sea not far from Piazza San Marco. Today the place is also famous for luxurious restaurants and cafes, pigeons and floods.
Piazza San Marco is undoubtedly the vital fulcrum of the district, which is overlooked by the Palazzo Ducale, seat of the Venetian political power since the ninth century, its first building and the Basilica of San Marco, the chapel of the private Doge up to 1807, people were not allowed to enter the Basilica except on feasts or exceptional occasions. Until that date the Patriarchal seat of Venice was San Pietro di Castello, at the eastern end of the city.
The Clock Tower is a very important monument for the Venetians. Behind the Palazzo Ducale from the Ponte della Paglia it is possible to admire the well-known Bridge of Sighs beyond which the Castello district begins. Other places of interest are the Gran Teatro La Fenice, the church of San Moisè which stands at the end of Calle Larga XXII Marzo and Palazzo Grassi, which has not long been converted into a prestigious exhibition venue.
As the cultural center of Venice, there is always something interested going around St Mark’s Square. There are several famous cafes and restaurants, which are known for luxury and high prices. It is one of the most expensive places in the world, but also one of the most beautiful. Napoleon himself described St Mark’s Square as “the most beautiful salon in Europe”. Goethe was enthusiastic about the main square of the lagoon city during his journey through Italy.
Attractions around Piazza San Marco
St. Mark’s Basilica
The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of San Marco, more famously called the Basilica of San Marco is the cathedral church and seat of the patriarchate of Venice. Together with the bell tower and the square of San Marco, it forms the main architectural site of Venice, and, together with them, it constitutes the best known symbol of the city and of the Veneto in the world. It is also one of the symbols of Venetian art and Christianity. The basilica was built in 829 to contain the remains of San Marco, patron saint of the city and was consecrated in 1024. The main facade is unique. It has five arched doors, a terrace on which I am at home, four bronze horses from the prey of the 4th crusade of the unbelievers. In the period of the Republic of Venice, it was the personal chapel of the Doge and was built with various artifacts mostly from Asia Minor and donated by Venetian merchants.. Inside it is embellished with splendid golden mosaics and various works of art. By virtue of the treasure of San Marco, the ornate mosaics and the majestic design elements, which made the sacred building the visible symbol of the power and wealth.
It has been renovated and decorated several times over the centuries and the Basilica is certainly the most spectacular church in the city. The famous main façade has an ornamented roofline that is mostly Gothic. The gold ground mosaics that now cover almost all the upper areas of the interior took centuries to complete. In the 13th century the external height of the domes was greatly increased by hollow drums raised on a wooden framework and covered with metal; the original ones are shallower, as can be seen on the inside. This change makes the domes visible from the piazza. Many of its rich artifacts and relics were plundered from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, including many artifacts from the Hagia Sophia. For its opulent design, gold ground mosaics, and its status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power, from the 11th century on the building has been known by the nickname Church of gold. It achieves an Oriental feeling of exoticism, has all the elements of the Venetian style of the Renaissance Art, remains unique, and essentially a product of Italian workers of all sorts.
St Mark’s Campanile
The bell tower of San Marco is one of the most important symbols of the city of Venice, it is one of the tallest bell towers in Italy, standing isolated in a corner of Piazza San Marco in front of the basilica. The bell tower of San Marco was built in the 9th century. It was originally used as an observation tower and a lighthouse. It was rebuilt in 1100 and then completed in the 16th under the guidance of the architect Bon. It was rebuilt in the Renaissance style, while maintaining the original structure. The bell tower has played an essential role in the political and social life of the city for centuries. The bells were rung to inform the inhabitants of the city of all the main events organized in Venice. At the foot of the bell tower were famous wine sellers who moved to sit in the shadow of the bell tower, depending on the time of day. From this ancient custom derives the term used by the Venetians for a glass of wine: Ombra. The top of the tower offers a splendid view of Venice and the lagoon.
Simple in shape, it consists of a fluted, square-shaped brick barrel with a side of 12 meters and about 50 meters high, above which there is the belfry, with arches. The belfry is in turn surmounted by a die, on whose faces two going lions and the female figures of Venice (Justice) are alternately depicted. The whole is completed by the pyramid- shaped cusp, on the top of which, mounted on a rotating platform to function as a weather vane, is the golden statue of the archangel Gabriel. The base of the building is embellished, on the side facing the basilica, by the loggia of Sansovino. At the base of the Campanile is the Loggetta, a colonnaded portico designed by Sansovino. Constructed of red Verona marble and embellished with white marble of Carrara, verde antique (a mottled green marble), and white Istrian limestone, the Loggetta was intended to serve as a suitable backdrop for Venetian noblemen to gather before processing in state to the Doges’ Palace.
Marciana National Library
The Marciana National Library is one of the largest Italian libraries and the most important in Venice. It contains one of the finest collections of Greek, Latin and Oriental manuscripts in the world. Palladio defines the library as “the richest and most ornate building that has ever been built by the ancients up to here”. The project is remarkable, the structure important. The decoration is at the base of the library, built on two floors. The architectural order, which significantly defines the decoration of the artefact is superimposed. On the ground floor a rich three-dimensional Tuscanic which is leaning on the pillars (Roman style) with evident triglyphs and metopes and on the upper floor the Ionic. An example of great innovation are the very compacted Serliane that characterize the building on the first floor. The decorative enrichment of the library is embellished with sculptural works. Fruit festoons, a large cornice with important statues corresponding to the columns characterize the evident Renaissance crowning.
The arches of the ground floor are of the Tuscan order. On them rests a Doric entablature which alternates triglyphs and metopes; on the second level there is an Ionic loggia, surmounted in turn by a rich frieze in which cherubs and festoons of flowers and fruit follow one another. In the arches, a rich sculptural decoration. On the crowning, a balustrade surmounted by statues of classical divinities, works by Alessandro Vittoria, Tommaso Minio, Tommaso and Girolamo Lombardo, Danese Cattaneo and Bartolomeo Ammannati. In the façade, light and chiaroscuro, the voids prevail over the full ones. It is a polyvalent organism, whose prospect on the square is resolved with a double order of Roman-style arches, inspired by the Theater of Marcellus and the Sangalleschi projects for the courtyard of Palazzo Farnese. The first order, porticoed, takes up the double Roman system of the columns supporting the architrave and the pillars that support the arches, and the second which presents discontinuous balustrades, columns supporting a very rich frieze and serlianas so contracted by cancel their trifore value.
Clock Tower
The Clock Tower is a Renaissance building located in Piazza San Marco. In Renaissance style, it overlooks Piazza San Marco. The building consists of a central tower, built between 1496 and 1499 by the architect Mauro Codussi, and two side wings, added later. The arch below connects the square with the Mercerie. The clock face, 4.5 m in diameter, is in gold and blue enamel; marks the time, day, moon phase and zodiac. The Clock is also equipped with a mechanism traditionally activated only in the days of Epiphany and Ascension: at each stroke of the hours, the side panel of the hours opens to let a carousel of wooden statues pass Nativity and the three Magi. The statues, dragged by a rail mechanism along the semicircular platform above the dial, then re-enter the tower through the side panel of the minutes located on the opposite side of the statue of the Virgin and Child, placed in the center. Starting with the sunset of the sun, which occurs at different times depending on the season, the day was divided into 24 hours of variable length.
The tower is characterized by the two Moors on the top and by a gold-blue clock that activates its carillon on the occasion of the Epiphany, making the Three Kings and the characters of the Nativity come out at every stroke of the hour. Famous are the so-called Moors of Venice, so nicknamed for their brown color by the Venetians. Located at the top of the Tower on a terrace, there are two bronze statues depicting two shepherds who beat the hours with a mace on a large bell. A very specific detail contributes to this attribution of roles. The Moors mark the hours by striking the bell with their hammers (as many tolls as there are hours), but with a precise modality. The Moro Vecchio strikes the hour two minutes before the exact time, to represent the time that has passed, while the Moro Giovane strikes the hour two minutes later to represent the time to come. The tower houses a bell of note E flat 3, cast in 1497 by Simone Campanato. The bell is beaten by the Moors and, at noon and midnight, also by two hammers, the hammers of the sundial, not visible from the square.
Doge’s Palace
The Doge’s Palace, one of the symbols of the city of Venice and a masterpiece of Venetian Gothic. Ancient seat of the doge and the Venetian magistrates, founded after 812. Today it houses the Civic Museum of Palazzo Ducale, part of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE). A true homage to Venetian Gothic. Distinguished by a style that, drawing inspiration from Byzantine and Eastern architecture, well exemplifies the intensity of the commercial and cultural relations between the Serenissima and other European states, its beauty is based on a shrewd aesthetic and physical paradox, the heavy bulk of the main body is supported by apparently slender inlaid colonnades. The Doge’s Palace is spread over three wings around the sides of a large central arcaded courtyard, two colonnaded levels surmounted by a mighty inlaid marble body in which large ogival windows open, with a monumental central balcony, its vault is richly decorated, and a crowning of small cusps and corner aedicules, replacing the traditional cornice.
The Doge’s Palace in Venice preserves in its rooms and along its facades an impressive number of works of art, dating back to various historical periods, commissioned by individual doges to pass on their memory or in the context of general restructuring of the complex. The decorative apparatus had mainly celebratory functions towards the history of the Serenissima Republic of Venice, there are numerous allegories, paintings depicting battles and historical events, tables depicting devotional gestures towards saints and the Virgin. The interiors, now partly deprived of the works that once decorated them, still retain a large picture gallery, which includes works by the most famous Venetian masters, including Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, Tiziano Vecellio, Francesco Bassano, Paolo Veronese,Giambattista Zelotti, Jacopo Palma the Younger, Andrea Vicentino and Antonio Vassilacchi. Discover the part of the building where the city administration operated, the Casanova prison and the wonderful five-hundred-year-old roof structure. By visiting the palace it is also possible to access the Bridge of Sighs.
Correr Museum
The Correr Museum is one of the most important and representative museums in the city of Venice. It illustrates, in the various sections and in the varied and rich collections, the art, civilization and history of Venice. The most “Venetian” of all museums, with evidence of the history and art of the city. It takes its name from the Venetian nobleman, an art lover, Teodoro Correr, who bequeathed his art collection to the city on his death in 1830. Inside there is an interesting collection of globes, from the sixteenth century. There is also a single library room, an archaeological museum of Roman antiques and an important art gallery. The museum offers a tour of Venetian history. Remarkable art gallery with Venetian masterpieces from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, works of Venetian Canova sculpture, studies on urban development and social life.
First Floor: sumptuous ballroom displaying ornaments and decorations typical of the Empire style. Sissi’s Apartment, the decoration dates back to the years of the Habsburgs, the empress lived here between 1861 and 1862. Wunderkammer: Nine rooms on the first floor of the Correr Museum currently house a “collection of wonders” that evokes the charm of a possible lagoon Wunderkammer. Inside the Procuratie Nuove the various aspects of Venetian civilization are presented through rooms that exhibit paintings, coins and artifacts of various kinds.Second Floor: Much of the approximately 140 paintings exhibited in the Quadreria belonged to the collection of Teodoro Correr. Carlo Scarpa’s staging, a intervened enhance the work of art and the relationship it establishes with the visitor, and all along the path he enhanced natural lighting.
National Archaeological Museum of Venice
The National Archaeological Museum of Venice is a state museum dedicated to archeology, located in Piazza San Marco, at the Procuratie Nuove. The National Archaeological Museum was established in 1523 by Cardinal Domenico Grimani. This Museum has a great collection of Greek and Roman sculptures, ceramics, coins and stones dating back as far as the 1st Century B.C. Some of the archeological collections from the Correr Museum are also housed here.
It houses a collection of antiquities, the result of Venetian collecting, with examples of Greek sculptures from the 5th – 4th century BC, the Galati Grimani, portraits from the Roman era, reliefs, inscriptions, ceramics, ivories, gems and a numismatic collection. sitors can also view the elegant vases, impeccable ivories, portraits of long-ago Roman emperors, marbles and busts, gems and jewelry in this museum. Numerous treasured relics of Assyro-Babylonian, Greek, Tuscan, Roman and Egyptian origins will enlighten the visitors seeking pieces of Neolithic Age. Visitors will relish other highlights such as the Armenian-Venetian collection, legal texts dating back to the 17th Century, and bilingual dictionaries.
Olivetti shop
The Olivetti store in Venice is a small two-storey venue located in Piazza San Marco, the work of the architect Carlo Scarpa. The ultra-modern building was a real provocation when it first appeared under the arcades of the Procuratie Vecchie in 1958. High-tech pioneer Olivetti commissioned Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa to transform a cramped and dark souvenir shop in a demonstration for his typewriters and “computers” (several 1948-54 models presented). They are of particular interest to connoisseurs of modern architectural art. After years of losing its original function, In 2011 the shop was reopened after a careful philological restoration, which restored its original colors, furnishings and collection of Olivetti machines.
The shop consists of a volumetrically united environment with the first floor almost entirely loft, which includes without interruptions the small entrance area adjacent to the Piazza, the exhibition space and a discreet corridor, which leads to a rectangular room from which you access the services, with which the ground floor ends. In this large room, to delimit the corridor, there is a staircase, modeled with lateral displacements, through which one reaches the first floor, half the size of the lower one. Also in this room, between the entrance and the foot of the staircase, there is a very elegant ornamental fountain, whose nozzle is made up of an internal white marble and copper plate with the Olivetti logo, which pours a light flow of water into a rectangular tub of perfectly smooth black marble.Alberto Viani. All the rooms are paved with a gentle play of marble and Murano glass: a series of quadrangular tiles, very similar to each other in shape but different, from area to area, by color, are interspersed with finishes of white and smooth stone, with a very pleasant glossy effect on the entire surface.
Procuratie
The Procuratie are imposing buildings that rise in Venice, in the Sestiere of San Marco, and that wrap around Piazza San Marco on three sides. The Procuratie Vecchie extend for 152 meters, from the Clock Tower towards the Napoleonic Wing, with a portico of 50 arches, to which the 100 windows of the two upper floors correspond. Although they are closed with a round arch, the lightness of the openings recalls the Venetian-Byzantine style of the first procuratie, built in the 12th century under the doge Sebastiano Ziani and intended to apartments for “de citra” prosecutors, very high magistrates. Currently they house shops on the ground floor and offices on the upper floors. Until the end of the 1980s, most of them were the headquarters of Assicurazioni Generali.
Religious architecture
Church of San Zulian
The church of San Zulian is a religious building in the city of Venice. The church is dedicated to the martyr St. Julian. Founded in 829, the church took its appearance during the rebuilding of Sansovino, which was funded by Dr. Tomaso Rangone, the doctor is immortalized in bronze above the portal holding the sarsaparilla – his “miracle cure”. Inside, under the painted ceiling, are the works of Palma the Younger and “Dead Christ and Saints” by Veronese. In the lunette of the pediment the Rangone stands on a funeral urn, dressed in the doctoral toga while delivering to posterity the synthesis of his knowledge wrapped in a complex symbolism.
The interior of the building has a single nave, almost square, with the rectangular presbytery covered by a cross vault, flanked by two small chapels. Christological cycle that surrounds the hall in its upper register. Eight allegorical figures around the ceiling mark the reflection on the Passion of Christ and surround the triumph of St. Julian, placed in the center of the ceiling at the end of the cycle of St. Julian, to these two cycles must be added the testimonies of the community, of the various Arts, of the Confraternities and Schools of devotion that were expressed in the side altars. There are seven altars in all: noteworthy is the altarpiece of the monumental high altar (by Giuseppe Sardi), with a Coronation of the Virgin and saints signed by Gerolamo Santacroce.
Church of Santo Stefano
The church of Santo Stefano is a place of worship catholic city of Venice. The church was built between the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century by the eremitani friars of Sant’Agostino. It was rebuilt in the fourteenth century and underwent substantial enlargements during the fifteenth century. The Gothic-style portal of the church is the work of Bartolomeo Bon, while the characteristic ceiling has a ship’s keel structure. To support it, engraved beams and columns in Verona marble. The apse of the church is also a bridge under which a navigable stream flows, while the particularly high Romanesque bell tower of the church with a three-arched cell and surmounted by an octagonal drum, is characterized by a accentuated slope.
The church of Santo Stefano overlooks Campo Santo Stefano with the right side. In it there are various ogival single- lancet windows and, in the central span of the three visible from the outside, also a side portal with a carved marble cornice. The facade appears much more impressive than it is as it faces a very narrow street. In the upper band there is a rose window in the center and two Gothic mullioned windows on the sides. In the lower one, aligned with the central window, there is the imposing portal characterized by a flowery Gothic style lunette, whose perimeter is inflected on the outside and decorated with large phytomorphic flames, acute on the inside and decorated with trilobate hanging arches. On both sides of the lunette, empty in the center, there are two slender onesoctagonal spiers, while at the top of the arch, above the high relief of an angel carrying a cartouche, there is a small marble statue depicting a Christ Pantocrator.
San Salvador Church
The of the Holy Savior Church is a place of worship catholic of Venice. It was founded in the 7th century and then rebuilt in the 12th century by the Canons of Sant’Agostino. The current building was started by Tullio Lombardo, only to be later completed by Jacopo Sansovino. The façade from 1663 is the work of the well-known Ticino architect Giuseppe Sardi. In Renaissance style where it is possible to admire the Annunciation by Titian. Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, is buried in the church inside the funeral monument dedicated to her. The church was hit in the siege of 1849, on the left side of the facade, at the base of the first column, a cannon ball can be seen embedded in the wall.
Church of San Bartolomeo
The church of San Bartolomeo is a sacred building in Venice. Founded in 840, the church dedicated to St. Demetrius of Thessalonica. A church with a nave, with a dome at the intersection of this with the transept. There are also two sculptures by Enrico Merengo inside the church. Inside are the paintings by Sante Peranda (Fall of the manna) Palma il Giovane (Punishment of the serpents) and the eighteenth-century high altar by Bernardino Maccaruzzi. In the presbytery and in the chapel on the right there are frescoes by Michelangelo Morlaiter. The organ doors are an early masterpiece by Sebastiano del Piombo.
Church of San Moisè
The church of San Moise is a religious building in the city of Venice. Erected in the late 8th century and was initially dedicated to San Vittore. A beautiful baroque style church inside houses works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries among which the washing of the feet by Tintoretto stands out. The façade was built in 1668 thanks to the financing of the brothers Vincenzo and Girolamo Fini, who were depicted on two busts placed above the side entrances. The project is by the Paduan Alessandro Tremignon, brother of the then parish priest Andrea. The whole is in some way harmonized thanks to the use of two orders, which have dampened its development towards the other, and the use of less prominent backgrounds.
The altar of the Nativity of Mary and the high altar are also due to Tremignon. The latter is decorated with sculptures by Enrico Merengo. Among the other paintings it is possible to admire the Washing of the feet by Tintoretto, a Last Supper attributed to Palma the Younger, and two important works by Girolamo Brusaferro: the Submersion of the Pharaoh (1706) and the Elevation of the Cross (1727). The central nave houses the plaque of the Scottish financier John Law, who founded the Western Company aimed at developing the Mississippi Valley and who retired to live in Venice in the last years of his life, after suffering a series of financial setbacks. Also in the sacristy there are works by Michelangelo Morlaiter: San Matteo, San Vincenzo Ferrari, San Carlo Borromeo.
Church of San Vidal
The church of San Vidal is a religious building in the city of Venice. Built by Doge Vitale Falier in the 11th century. It is now a concert hall, which hosts classical music concerts. The main façade overlooks the Campo of the same name. It presents itself with classical forms according to a Palladian scheme and houses on two side sculpted portraits of Doge Carlo Contarini and his wife Paolina Loredan, in memory of the legacy with which the construction was financed. Tradition says that the burial of the famous Venetian musician Baldassare Galuppi was placed in the church of San Vidal, but there is no commemorative plaque to testify this.
The interior, with a vaulted ceiling, has a single nave structure, with three secondary altars on each side. Flanked by two eighteenth-century sculptures, the patriarch Simeone and San Giuseppe, attributable to Antonio Tarsia, while the upper lunette is decorated with the Ascension by Antonio Vassilacchi. The third altar on the left houses a painting from the school of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, San Sebastiano and San Rocco, by Angelo Trevisan. The high altar is located in an isolated position in the center of the presbytery and is flanked by two statues by Antonio Gai depicting La Fortezza and La Fede. On the right side, there was three altar houses works by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, Antonio Tarsia and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. Other works can be found in the sacristy: The death of Sant’Ursicino by Gregorio Lazzarini and The martyrdom of San Vitale, an eighteenth-century painting from the Venetian school.
Church of Santa Maria del Giglio
The church of Santa Maria del Giglio is a place of worship catholic located in the center of the city of Venice. Founded in the 9th century, but almost completely rebuilt in the late 17th century. The marble façade of the church is a masterpiece of the Baroque. It consists of a series of niches with statues and bas-reliefs interspersed with Ionic (lower band) and Corinthian (upper band) columns. The statue in the central niche of the second order, depicting Antonio Barbaro on the sarcophagus. this church features a series of six relief maps on the facade depicting Rome and five then Venetian cities: Padua, the Croatian cities of Zadar and Split, and also the Greek cities of Heraklion and Corfu.
The interior of the church has a single nave with three short side chapels on each side. The main chapel in the apse is also quadrangular in plan and is covered by a lunette vault. On the main altar, on the sides of the tabernacle, there are two sculptures depicting the Annunciation, the work of Enrico Merengo. Inside there are several masterpieces. Two canvases by Tintoretto, each depicting two of the four evangelists. They are located on the sides of the body. There is a small treasure in the Molina Chapel, although the real pearl of the church is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens depicting the “Madonna with Child and St. John”. Admiral Antonio Barbaro ordered Giuseppe Sardi to rebuild the church to the glory of the Virgin, in Venice.
Other notable churches, including:
Church of San Beneto;
Church of San Basso;
Church of the Holy Cross of the Armenians;
Church of San Fantin;
St. Gallen Church;
Church of San Luca;
Church of San Samuele.
Palaces and civil buildings
Contarini del Bovolo Palace
Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo is a building late Gothic of Venice. A cylindrical tower with a series of spiral arches, one of the most characteristic examples of Venetian architecture in the transition period from the Gothic to the Renaissance style. From the top there are beautiful panoramic views over the city. The palace was built between three and fifteenth century as the residence of the Contarini “of San Paternian “, which from the late fifteenth century, due to the addition of the spiral staircase, were nicknamed “the Bovolo”. In 1859, then lithographer Wilhelm Tempel conducted his first astronomical observations from the tower lookout with a telescope of his own. Here he discovered, on April 2, 1859, the comet C / 1859 G1, and on October 19, 1859, the Merope Nebula in the open cluster of the Pleiades. The building still belongs to the Institutions of hospitalization and education of Venice.
Facade on the Rio di San Luca has a simple, linear and elegant appearance. It is spread over four levels: the ground floor, the two noble floors and the top floor. The ground floor is enriched by two pointed water portals, flanked by smaller single lancet windows but also with pointed arches, arranged on the sides on two levels and in the center on only one. The three upper floors have a central mullioned window, each of which is flanked by six single-light windows, three on each side. The rear facade has a completely different look. Characterized by a sequence of rectangular single-lancet windows and round arches, it finds its most expressive part in the famous round scalar tower with a spiral staircase. The tower gives access to adjoining loggias, developed on five levels, and continues the aerial style in the five orders of flying buttresses on columns. The tower ends in a lookout in the dome with a wide view over the city. Inside the building there are paintings dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries, also owned by the IRE.
Fontego dei Tedeschi
The Fontego dei Tedeschi is a palace in Venice. From the 13th century, it is an old warehouse for goods from Germany. From 1870 to 2011 the main post office in Venice. It underwent a new static and functional restoration project, under the artistic direction of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, for its conversion into a also of a cultural center, which was opened to the public in 2016.
A large complex overlooking the Rialto Bridge, the Fontego is a square-plan building arranged on three levels around an internal courtyard, covered by a glass and steel structure, where the ancient well is preserved. On the ground floor five large round arches close a portico in dialogue with the Grand Canal, where goods were unloaded. The second level is crossed by a long row of double lancet and lancet windows which correspond symmetrically minor quadrangular windows of the two floors above. Around 1508 the façade overlooking the Grand Canal was frescoed by Giorgione and Tiziano Vecellio, but today only a few fragments of their work remain in the Ca ‘d’Oro. The interiors also kept works of inestimable value, by the painters Paolo Veronese, Tiziano Vecellio and Jacopo Tintoretto, of which almost every trace has been lost today.
Cavalli-Franchetti Palace
Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti is a building of Venice located in the district of San Marco. This imposing neo-Gothic building is located at the foot of the Accademia Bridge, which stretches towards Campo Santo Stefano. The Palace was built in 1565, and in the mid-19th century it was divided as the residence of various famous Venetian families: Marcello, Hussonita Cavalli. In the 1840s, Archduke Frederick of Austria reunited the property and started a large modernization project aimed at giving the building a modernity that distinguishes it. Palazzo Franketti is currently used by the Veneto Institute of Sciences and has been used for cultural events. Since 1999 it has belonged to the Venetian Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts, which hosts frequent cultural events and exhibitions.
It is a remarkable example of Gothic architecture, the five-light windows of the two noble floors style this typicality, characterized by characteristic openwork similar to those of Palazzo Pisani Moretta. The floor is characterized by intertwined arches, decorated with raised quadrilobes. This composition is flanked by numerous other holes, similar to the five-light windows by design; the exceptions are the single lancet windows on the second floor, which are ogive, and the water portal. The side façade, which insists on a large garden, instead offers a more solid design, characterized by seven single-light windows per floor. With the help of the ornatist Matscheg and the engineer Manetti, who created a profoundly changed architecture thanks to ornate paintings, carved marble, cast and wrought iron, worked stones, lamps and furnishings with an eclectic taste.
Corner Spinelli Palace
Palazzo Corner Spinelli is a palace in Venice. One of the best Renaissance palaces in Venice. It was built between 1480 and 1500 by the architect Mauro Coducci. The architectural feature of the building are the double round windows and the rusty brickwork on the first floor. The palace became a prototype for many city buildings. It is often referred to as the emblem of the transition from Gothic to Renaissance architecture in Venetian art.
Palazzo Corner Spinelli is an example of the transition from the Gothic forms, predominant in Venice up to the 15th century, to the new Renaissance lines, which, specifically, recall those of the contemporary Ca ‘Vendramin Calergi. The façade on the canal is symmetrical, open to the noble floors by four mullioned windows on each floor and cut by string courses, which highlight the three levels of which the building is composed. Peculiar elements of the architecture of this building are the pear-shaped windows, which divide the two holes of the mullioned windows and the trilobate balconies in a Gothic style. On the ground floor the external surface is embellished with ashlar, with a round portal in the center. Internally the building retains a sixteenth-century fireplace.
Other notable palaces and civil buildings, including:
Palazzo Barbaro in San Vidal;
Bellavite Palace;
Palazzo Bembo;
Ca ‘Faccanon;
Cavalli Palace;
Contarini Palace in San Beneto;
Contarini Palace of the Figures;
Contarini Fasan Palace;
Corner Palace of Ca ‘Granda;
Corner Gheltof building;
Curti Valmarana Palace;
Palazzo D’Anna Viaro Martinengo Volpi di Misurata;
Ca ‘del Duca;
Dolfin Manin Palace;
Duodo Palace in Sant’Angelo;
Erizzo Nani Mocenigo Palace;
Palazzo Falier;
Ca ‘Farsetti;
Ferro Fini Palace;
Fonteghetto della Farina;
Garzoni Palace;
Ca ‘Giustinian;
Giustinian Lolin Palace;
Grimani Palace;
Gritti Morosini Palace;
Ca ‘Loredan (Corner Piscopia Palace);
Loredan Palace;
Corner Contarini dei Cavalli Palace;
Malipiero Palace;
Minotto-Barbarigo Palace;
Mocenigo palaces;
Molin del Cuoridoro Palace;
Moro Lin Palace;
Nervi-Scattolin Palace;
Casino Venier;
Palazzo Barbaro in Santo Stefano;
Palazzo Salvadori Tiepolo;
Palazzetto Pisani.
Cultural space
Palazzo Grassi
Palazzo Grassi is a Venetian civil building. It is one of the most famous lagoon buildings, as well as home to art exhibitions worthy of particular interest. The Contemporary art museum with temporary exhibitions from the collection of François Pinault. Exhibitions by different artists that make this center one of the most active in the world. In the center, there is a colonnaded courtyard, similar to that of Palazzo Corner, which divides the structure into two blocks: the front one houses four side rooms and a central hall, while the rear one houses smaller rooms and a sumptuous decorated staircase by Michelangelo Morlaiter and Fabio Canal, similar in shape to that of Palazzo Pisani Moretta. There are numerous single-lancet windows with or without balcony, neatly arranged in pairs.
Distinguished by two large facades, one front facing the Grand Canal and one side facing Campo San Samuele, it stands out for its incredible size and its whiteness. The main façade, in clear neoclassical style, hides a very complex and scenographic plan, inspired more by the Roman model than by the Venetian model. The main front clad entirely in Istrian stone and respects the traditional tripartite arrangement: the windows, with a linear appearance and of classical inspiration, are concentrated in a multi- lancet window on each of the noble floors. The holes differ in decoration: those on the first floor are round-arched, while those on the second have gables that are sometimes curvilinear, sometimes triangular. The windows are separated by smooth pilasters culminating in Ionic or Corinthian capitals. It has a water portal divided into three holes, similar to a triumphal arch. The façade is closed by a strip with a corbel cornice, which hides the attic. The side façade, equally imposing, imitates the main one in style, offering a Roman-inspired ground portal and a Serliana.
Palazzo Fortuny Museum
The Palazzo Fortuny is a palazzo gothic of Venic. It is named after the last owner, the artist Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, and is home to the homonymous museum. The palace was founded at the end of the 15th century. Mariano Fortuny, who bought it at the beginning of the twentieth century to make their own atelier, was an eclectic man who took care of photography, set design and set design, textile design, painting. After his death, his wife Henriette donated the palace, which still well preserved Mariano’s fabrics and collections, to the Municipality of Venice (1956) who made it the place dedicated to dealing with the disciplines of visual communication, particularly experimentation and innovation, in harmony with the spirit and culture of the old owner.
Palazzo Fortuny is considered one of the largest palaces in Venice among those in the Gothic style. It is often cited as one of the best examples of Venetian Gothic architecture in those buliding not overlooking the Grand Canal, for its compactness and architectural coherence and the harmony of its stylistic design. Particularly important is the façade that overlooks the campo, characterized by two airy central heptaphorae with pointed arches and other more spaced openings on the sides. The facade on rio, more modest, is characterized by three major polifore plants and a large water portal surrounded by secondary windows. Characteristic are also the two huge arcades, to allow the light to illuminate the whole vast environment, it was necessary to create a large internal courtyard characterized by various openings. All the balconies are enriched with decorations: sometimes by sculpted lions, sometimes by friezes depicting cherubs.
Church of San Maurizio
The church of San Maurizio in Venice is located in the district of San Marco. A beautiful church with a collection of musical instruments, Venetian baroque paintings. The Interpreti Veneziani, the creators of the Music Museum, also offer concerts in the nearby church of San Vidal. It was rebuilt for the first time at the end of the 16th century; subsequently, in 1806 it was demolished and rebuilt according to the project of Antonio Diedo and Giannantonio Selva. The façade of the church is gabled, in neoclassical style, adorned with a bas-relief in the tympanum and two other rectangular bas-reliefs. Inside, whose plan is a Greek cross, with a central dome, the sacristy should be noted, with furniture, furnishings, stuccoes and paintings in the eighteenth-century style. The current church closed to worship, now the church is the seat of the Music Museum.
Attractions on Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore
San Giorgio Maggiore is a basilica on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Begun in 1566 by Andrea Palladio, it was completed a century later by Simone Sorella. The façade has a single entrance with a giant order of four composite columns on high plinths, surmounted by entablature supporting a classic tympanum, like a tetrastyle prostyle temple. This is intertwined with a Templar scheme behind whose pediment rests on a slightly projecting architrave, supported by pilasters. On the sides of the portal the statues of San Giorgio and Santo Stefano, co-owner of the church.
The dome divides both axes of the church into two equal parts, with the longitudinal axis longer than the transept. The side aisles and the large wooden choir finely inlaid with apsidal are added to this plan, which is best appreciated from under the dome. Many paintings of great interest are preserved in the basilica. The most important are: Madonna Enthroned and Saints by Sebastiano Ricci; the Last Supper and Collection of Manna by Jacopo Tintoretto (in the presbytery); other canvases by Palma il Giovane, Domenico Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano. Also noteworthy are the choir stalls, with bas-reliefs by Albert Van der Brulle. On the main altar stands a large bronze by Gerolamo Campagna designed by Antonio Vassilacchi known as the Aliense.
Shopping
Venice is full of exquisite and irresistible boutiques selling everything from all kinds of exquisite party mask to hand-made glassware from Murano. The most exclusive (and expensive) shops cluster around Piazza San Marco. Longa 4391/A, Pauly & Co offers a sophisticated collection of hats, glasses, furniture and marble objects. Their second shop in Piazza San Marco sells Murano glassware. Il Papiro sells elegant and unique stationary materials, letterhead, postcards, delicate watermarked paper, monogrammed paper or cards, initial seals and so much more. Venetia Stvdivm has beautiful silk items: lamps, handbags and scarves, elegant velvet items, cushion covers and table runners, and other products influenced by the “history of Venice and its links to the Byzantium and the East”.