The Church of St. Mark’s is unequaled in the whole world for richness
of material and construction. It was originally the private chapel of
the Doge or ruler of Venice. One reason for its being so richly adorned
is that there was a law in Venice which required every merchant trading
with the East to bring back some material for the decoration of the
church. Thus it became the final resting place of the adornments from
countless other buildings, both in the East and in Italy. The building
has been compared to the treasure den of a band of pirates. It forms a
museum of sculpture of the most varied kind, from the fourth century
down to the latest Renaissance.
In 828 a little wooden church was built to receive the relics of the
Apostle Mark. The Moslems had pulled down the church where he was
buried in Alexandria; so his remains were brought to Venice, and Saint
Mark became the patron saint of the city in place of Saint Theodore.
In 976 this wooden church was burned, along with the ducal palace, in
the insurrection against Doge Canadiano IV. The church was rebuilt on a
larger scale by Pietro Orseolo and his successors. It was a very simple
church, in the form of a Greek cross, built of brick in the Romanesque
style. It was adorned with lines of colored brick, and brick set in
patterns here and there. On it were five low cupolas. St. Mark’s grew
in wealth as Venice became rich and important.
Doge Contarini remodeled the cathedral in 1063. Byzantine and Lombard
workmen were employed, and the two styles of architecture were joined.
The low brick cupolas were covered by high domes of wood roofed with
metal. Parts of the walls were sheathed with slabs of alabaster.
Incrusted marbles and mosaics were used further to decorate the
outside. Then in the fifteenth century the Gothic pinnacles and other
florid adornments of the exterior were added. The final result is the
finest piece of many-colored architecture in Europe.
The Cathedral of St. Mark is in its present form a Greek cross,
surmounted by a dome at each end and one in the center. The west front
has five great porches opening upon the Piazza di San Marco. The church
contains five hundred columns, mostly in oriental style, with richly
ornamented capitals.
The top of the narthex (that part of the church nearest the main
entrance) forms a wide gallery, in the center of which stand the four
great bronze horses which are said to have belonged to some Greco-Roman
triumphal quadriga, and to have been brought to Venice by Doge Enrico
Dandolo after the fall of Constantinople in 1204. In 1797 Napoleon
carried them to Paris; but they were restored by Francis of Austria in
1815.
The _pala d’oro_, or retable of the high altar, is one of the chief
glories of St. Mark’s, and is one of the most magnificent specimens of
goldsmiths’ and jewelers’ work in existence. The famous treasury of St.
Mark’s contains a precious collection of church plate, jeweled book
bindings, and other artistic treasures of the early Middle Ages.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27
[Illustration: THE CAMPANILE AND DOGE’S PALACE, VENICE]
_VENICE_
_The Campanile and Doge’s Palace_