Venice, Italy: St. Mark's Basilica

We got up early to walk across town to  St. Mark's Basilica.

It is free to enter the church, but the wait can be long.  If you want to go upstairs to the museum, you have to pay.

St. Mark's Church was the Dukes' Chapel until the end of the 18th century.

 The first St Mark's was a temporary building in the Doge's Palace, constructed in 828, when Venetian merchants stole the supposed relics of Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria.

 The line moved fast and there was plenty to look at while we waited.  We took turns taking photos.

According to Wikipedia: Venetian tradition states that when St. Mark was traveling through Europe, he arrived at a lagoon in Venice, where an angel appeared to him and said "Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus. Hic requiescet corpus tuum." (May Peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist. Here your body will rest.) This (possibly apocryphal) tradition was used as justification by Rustico da Torcello and Bon da Malamocco in 828 for stealing the remains of St. Mark from his grave in Alexandria, and moving them to Venice, where they were eventually interred in the Basilica of St. Mark.

 We bought a book in the shop at St. Mark's, which tells the following story, which is depicted in the above mosaic:

Two Venetian merchants had travelled to Alexandria on business, and went to venerate the saint's relics in the Church dedicated to him.  There they were told by the priest that the church had been profaned by the Muslims, who were plundering Christian churches to build mosques.  The two merchants removed the remains of St. Mark and concealed them in baskets of vegetables and pork, at the sight of which, the Arabs fled crying, "kanzir! kanzir!" (pork, pork!).  After a voyage full of dangers, which were miraculously overcome; the body of the saint was received by the Doge, who immediately ordered the construction of St. Mark's martyrium.

According to Venice for Kids by Elisabetta Pasqualin, the clock was made at the end of the XV century.  At the top of the tower on a small terrace are two very big statues called "Moors" because of their dark skin.  They strike the hour on a large bell.  Venice was so proud of this exceptional and unique clock that the two clock makers who built it were blinded so that they wouldn't make another one like it anywhere else.  (Yikes!)

 he Triumphal Quadriga or Horses of St Mark's is a set of bronze statues of four horses, originally part of a monument depicting a quadriga (a four-horse carriage used for chariot racing) The horses were set into the facade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, northern Italy after the sack of Constantinople in 1204. They remained there until looted by Napoleon in 1797 but were returned in 1815. The quadriga have been removed from the facade and placed in the museum inside St. Mark's for conservation purposes.

 Behind the alter is one of the most valuable objects in the entire world!  The Gold Altarpiece behind the main altar is made entirely of gold.  It is composed of 250 painted pictures, enamels, and 3000 precious stones.  

Beneath the main altar is the body of St. Mark.

It is forbidden to snap photos inside the church.Taking pictures.  I snapped a few photos of the amazing mosaic floor.  When I was in my twenties and visited for the first time, I bought a poster that was a mosaic of photos of the mosaic floors.  Every tiny bit of the basilica is ornately decorated.

 While driving through Italy, I saw several huge blocks of marble strapped to flatbed trucks.  My guess is that most of them were bound for kitchen counter tops.

 It is worth going up to the museum.  The museum itself is full of amazing things, and it offers amazing views of both the sanctuary from above and of the quare from the outside balcony.