Basilica di San Marco

Beautiful Venetian church with 5 domes looks like the ancient church of Costantinopoli. It was embellished during the early centuries of the last millennium and particulary in the thirtheenth century when Venice dominated Mediterranean culture and economy.
The church, built to represent the power of Serenissima, is externally embellished with marble, mosaics and bas-relief: all maded with precious materials came from Bisanzio, Aquileia and Ravenna.
The entrances have bronze flaps and are surrounded by columns placed in 2 levels while Gothic arches of fourteenth century close the upper part and, above the main door, there're the four horses took from the racecourse of Costantinopoli after the Venetian conquest in 1204.

Internally, the church has a Greek cross plan with domes substained by big columns.
But the most amazing fact of this church is that the architectural structure is perfectly hidden by the beauty of the mosaics. Moreover, on the floors there are other mosaics of the twelfth century, maded by Byzantinian an Venetian artists and later maded again during the seventeenth century following the drawings of Tintoretto, Veronese and Tiziano.
Don't forget to take a look to the beautiful Pala d'Oro, an incredible work of Byzantinian and Venetian goldsmith's art (X° - XIV° secolo), covered with gems and emeralds, placed on ther main altar in the centre of the church.
Basilica, therefore, masterpiece for the greatness of its placing, for the richness rising up from every particular and for the great spiritual influence that visitors can feel in it.

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Palazzo Ducale

Nowadays Doge's Palace represented without dubt the imagine of venice in the world!
But whoever is coming to Venice should follow the rule of the past for every visitor who was arriving in this city: arrive in front of Doge's Palace from the lagoon, "the door of Venice". Once Venice was leading the trade all over the Mediterranean sea and in this way the visitor was immediately shocked by the wealthness of Venice and the power of its establishment.

Today nothing remain of the ancient Byzantinian foundation: the present building in front of the lagoon was built in the fourteenth. Its structure is definetely sudivided in three parts: the PORTICO on the groun floor where big columns ended in acute arches, the LOGGIA with arches inflexed and four-leaf clover shaped holes , and the SALA DEL MAGGIOR CONSIGLIO, the maximum symbol of Venetian power, where all the political congress took place and the Doge was elected.
The facade of this part of the building has been made with coloured marble and stone disposed with a geometrical rule.

The style of this impressive buildiing and the fact it was the symbol of the power determined a diffusion all over Venice of this architectural elements: you can see some influences on the building facing the Gran Canal.
In the fifteenth century the builcing was completed with the facade on the square's side, till the final PORTA DELLA CARTA (paper'door) in the 1442 that definitely situates the late Gothic style of the front parts.

The interior of the palace was rebuilt at the end of fifteenth century after a huge fire that burned everything. With this occasion, during the edification of the new building was create another masterpiece in this area of Venice: the SCALA DEI GIGANTI (giants' stair) that should have concluded the triumphal path of the new Doges bringing them to the internal loggia. Monument, symbol, power: all resumed in this marvellous building that dominates the life in the lagoon.

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