This grand square is surrounded by splashy, historic buildings and sights: St. Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, the Campanile bell tower, the Clock Tower, and the Correr Museum. The square is filled with music, lovers, pigeons, and tourists by day, and is your private rendezvous with the Venetian past late at night, when Europe’s most magnificent dance floor is the romantic place to be.
St. Mark’s Basilica dominates the square with it’s Eastern-style onion domes and glowing mosaics. Mark Twain said it looked like “a vast warty bug taking a meditative walk.” Rick Steves thinks it looks like a tiara-wearing ladybugs copulating. :-0
To the right of the basilica is its 325-foot-tall Campanile.
Behind the Campanile, you can catch glimpse of the pale pink Doge’s Palace.
Lining the square are the former government offices (procuratie) that administered the Venetian empire’s vast network of trading outposts, which stretched all the way to Turkey.
With our backs to the church, survey one of Europe’s great urban spaces, and the only square in Venice to merit the title “Piazza”. Nearly two football fields long, it’s surrounded by the offices of the republic.
On the right are the “old offices” (16th-century Renaissance).
At left are the “new offices” (17th-century High Renaissance). Napoleon called the piazza “the most beautiful drawing room in Europe,” and added to the intimacy by building a final wing, opposite the basilica, that encloses the square.
The arcade that rings the square provides an elegant promenade – complete with drapes to provide relief from the sun.
Imagine this square full of water. This happens every so often at very high tides (acqua alta), a reminder that Venice and the sea are intertwined. As the city sinks… and the oceans rise… they are more intertwined as every.
Campanile – The original Campanile (bell tower) was an observation tower and a marvel of medieval and Renaissance architecture until 1902, when it toppled into the center of the piazza. It had groaned ominously the night before, sending people scurrying from the café’s. The next morning… crash! The golden angel on the op landed right at the basilica’s front door, standing up.
The Campanile was rebuilt 10 years later complete with its golden archangel Gabriel, who always faces the breeze. You can ride an elevator to the top for the best view of Venice. It’s crowded at peak times, but well worth it.
Basilica di San Marco’s bell tower has been rebuilt twice since its initial construction in AD 888. Galileo Galilei tested his telescope here in 1609 but modern-day visitors head to the top for 360-degree lagoon views and close encounters with the Marangona, the booming bronze bell that originally signalled the start and end of the working day for the Marangoni (artisians) at the Arsenale shipyards.
Today it rings twice a day, at noon and midnight.
Clock Tower – Built during the Renaissance in 1496, the Clock Tower (Torre dell-Orologio) marks the entry to the main shopping drag, called the Mercerie (or Marzarie in Venetian dialect), which connects St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge. From the piazza, you can see the bronze men (Moors) swing their huge clappers at the top of each hour.
In the 17th century, one of them knocked an unsuspecting worker off the top to his death – probably the first ever killing by a robot. Notice one of the world’s first “digital” clocks on the tower facing the square (with dramatic flips every five minutes).
