ST MARK’S BASILICA

Description

Essentials about St Mark’s Basilica in brief

St. Mark’s Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) on the homonymous Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) is one of the highlights of a visit to Venice and an absolute must-see during a trip to the lagoon city. St. Mark’s is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and at the same time one of the most architecturally and historically important churches in Italy and the whole world. Until the end of the Republic of Venice in 1797, St. Mark’s Basilica was the central state shrine of Venice. Since 1807, the cathedral has been the seat of the Patriarch of Venice.

The history of St Mark’s Basilica

The first church dedicated to St. Mark was founded in 828 to receive the bones of St. Mark the Evangelist, stolen from Alexandria that same year, replacing St. Theodore as Venice’s city saint. Between 829 and 832 the church was built as the palace chapel of the Doge’s Palace under Doge Giovanni I Particiaco.

In 976 the church and 200 houses were destroyed by a fire set by insurgents in the Doge’s Palace. In the same year, under Doge Pietro I Orseolo, the reconstruction of the second church began. The current St. Mark’s Basilica was built between 1063 and 1094 as a foundation of Doge Domenico Contarini. According to legend, the bones of St. Mark were miraculously recovered on June 25, 1094. This day became the holiday Inventio Sancti Marci.

In the 13th century, the domes of St. Mark’s were raised, the northern porch facing away from the Doge’s Palace was added, and the western front facing Piazza San Marco was remodeled as a columned façade. The northern porch was built between 1231 and 1253, following the Byzantine model. Since then, the domes can be seen from Piazza San Marco. In the second half of the 14th century, a third construction phase took place, which changed the building in the sense of Venetian Gothic. This phase of construction and decoration extended into the 17th century. The date of completion of St. Mark’s Basilica is usually given as 1617.

The architecture of St Mark’s Basilica

St. Mark’s architectural form follows models from Byzantine architecture. An irregular Greek cross forms the floor plan, 76.5 meters long and 62.6 meters wide. The western arm of the cathedral is wider and longer. In addition to the crossing, the arms of the cross are also vaulted by domes 45 meters high. The crossing dome and the western dome are larger than the other three domes.

Venice’s close ties with Byzantium meant that the artists brought in to do the construction work worked primarily from Byzantine models. The model could have been the Justinian Church of the Apostles in Constantinople from the 6th century, which no longer exists today. St. Mark’s thus deliberately does not follow any newer buildings of its own time, but rather the more dignified, original form. St. Mark’s Basilica brought the architectural idea of the large domed central building to Italy, and in turn became a model for the much later large-domed buildings of Bramante and Michelangelo. The additions of the 13th century were still in the Byzantine style, those of the 14th century in the Gothic style.

The façade of St Mark’s Basilica

The main façade, divided into two floors, represents the claim of St. Mark’s as the state church of Venice and is also a sign of the triumph over Constantinople in the Crusade of 1204. The façade is divided by five impressive portals with mosaic-decorated arches and corresponding arches on the final floor, of which the four lateral ones also have mosaic decoration. The supraport mosaics above the four lateral portals, starting from the side of the pier in the south and going north, tell the legend of the rescue and transfer of the bones of St. Mark to St. Mark’s.

The northern portal, Porta Sant’Alipio, is the oldest and the only one preserved from the 13th century, on which the view of St. Mark’s Basilica in the 13th century is handed down. Above the central portal is depicted the Last Judgment. The archivolts of this central portal were sculpted in the 13th century and depict the Venetian guilds, the twelve signs of the month and allegories of the virtues. The four lateral upper arches are crowned with foliate decorations and busts of the prophets, as well as a relief bust of a prophet in each arch spandrel. On the tops of the arches are the city saints of Venice: Constantine, Demetrius, Mark, George and Theodore. In the pediment of the central, larger arch below the statue of St. Mark is a golden relief of the striding lion of St. Mark, both republican symbols.

The impression of the façade is further determined by the abundant decoration by marble cladding, the innumerable antique columns made of marble, porphyry, jasper, serpentine and alabaster and many sculptures of different epochs. The 2,600 often ancient columns were largely gathered during conquests (e.g. those of Byzantium during the Crusade of 1204) and reused in St. Mark’s as spolia. In most cases they do not fulfill a load-bearing function, but serve as decoration and as symbol carriers for the power of Venice; such as the Acritan pillars in front of the south portal, which originate from the Polyeuktos Basilica.

Following the Byzantine model, St. Mark’s Basilica received the 62-meter-long, six-meter-wide and 7.4-meter-high northern porch, vaulted by eight smaller domes, between 1231 and 1253.

The horses of San Marco

The upper floor gallery is dominated by a copy of the famous ancient quadriga in gilded bronze, which, like many of the columns and some sculptures, was looted from Constantinople in 1204. The four horses of St. Mark’s on the loggia of St. Mark’s, formerly part of a quadriga, are the only surviving ancient quadriga. After restoration and study in the 1960s, it was exhibited in the Museo Marciano and replaced by copies on the façade of St. Mark’s.

The quadriga was created at the beginning of the 1st century A.D. Its place of origin is not clear between Rome, Greece and Alexandria. It was originally located on the triumphal arch of Emperor Nero in Rome. Emperor Constantine the Great took it to Constantinople, where it was placed in the Hippodrome and taken to Venice as spoils of war in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade when Constantinople was conquered. For this they possibly took off their heads and later put them back on incorrectly.

During the restoration of the horses, it was noticed that the gold covering of the sculptures, which are 1.60 meters tall and weigh 875 kilograms each, had been carved centuries ago so that the horses would not be too dazzling in the sun and make a more lifelike impression. It was also discovered that the quadriga was not made of common bronze, as was believed for centuries, but almost entirely of copper, which is much more difficult to melt than bronze but easier to gild. Each figure was cast in only two pieces, the seam line of which hides the collar.

In Venice, the horses initially stood in front of the arsenal for several decades and were almost melted down before their importance was realized in time and they were placed on the facade of St. Mark’s Basilica. In 1798 Napoleon had the four horses, like many other art treasures of Europe, brought to the Louvre in Paris, from where they returned to Venice after the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

The interior and the mosaics of St. Mark’s Basilica

The church interior is divided into three naves by four mighty pillars and six columns. The five domes rest on the pillars. The transept arms also have three naves.

The spatial effect inside St. Mark’s Basilica is impressive: while the floor is littered with ornamental mosaics of marble and the wall in the lower areas is covered with slabs of marble of all kinds, the upper wall zones and the entire ceiling are covered with mosaics with a gold background.

The entire interior of St. Mark’s represents a culmination of the mosaic art of the Occident. The mosaics on gold background earned the cathedral the name “Golden Basilica”. Work began under Doge Domenico Selvo in the late 11th century. Most of the mosaics, however, were created in the 13th century. Some were replaced – especially on the façade – in the 16th to 18th centuries according to designs from the schools of Titian and Tintoretto and other artists, although the old pictorial program was probably preserved. The mosaics cover an area of more than 8,000 square meters, forming one of the largest continuous mosaic surfaces in the world.

The actual building material of St. Mark’s is brick. On top of it, one or two layers of slurry cement were applied. A colored sketch of the planned scene was applied to the still wet plaster, then the individual tesserae were placed inside, with the tesserae pressed into the mortar to two-thirds of their height. For the production of tessarae, plates of colored glass flux were used instead of colored stones as in ancient times. Gold and silver foils were also melted into colorless glass. They were often given different angles of inclination to make the play of light reflections more vivid.

The pictorial program of the mosaics in St. Mark’s Basilica represents a run through the entire history of salvation in Christianity, interspersed with the political self-dramatization of Venice. In some cases, miniatures from old manuscripts were used as models, e.g. in the vestibule. Despite many renovations in all centuries, the original pictorial program has probably been essentially preserved.

The furnishing of St Mark’s Basilica

One of the most famous pieces of equipment of the church is the gold anpendium of the high altar, the so-called Pala d’oro. The attachment, about five square meters in size, is made of gold, silver, pearls and precious stones, among others sapphires and emeralds. In front of the choir room is the iconostasis with figures of the apostles, Mary, John and a triumphal cross by Dalle Masegne from 1394. To the left of the iconostasis the double pulpit from the 14th century, composed of different materials below the octagonal Romanesque pulpit for the preaching of the Gospel, above the Byzantine pulpit with dome, probably for the sermon. On the right, the lower pulpit or singers’ gallery. On the two-story north pulpit the Gospel would be read and preached on high feast days, and on the south pulpit the newly elected doge would be presented to the people. Last but not least, visitors to St. Mark’s should have seen the tomb of the church’s namesake, St. Mark, which is located in the basilica’s choir loft behind four columns.

After visiting St. Mark’s, those who want to learn even more about the history and splendor of St. Mark’s Basilica should visit the Museo di San Marco (St. Mark’s Museum). There are some important treasures of art history on display in the museum. One of the highlights are the above-mentioned four horses in the original, copies of which are located on the facade of the cathedral.