Piazza San Marco is the only place in Venice to be called a piazza (the other urban squares are named campi). It is trapezoidal in shape, 175m long with a width of 72m outside St Mark’s Basilica and 57m on the opposite side near the entrance to the Correr Museum.
The most important buildings in the political and religious life of Venice are clustered around the fulcrum of St Mark’s Basilica and the square. To the right of the church are the majestic Doges’ Palace; the piazzetta San Marco where 2 monoliths support the statues of St Mark in his symbolic guise as a winged lion and St Theodore slaying the dragon; then the Zecca mint built by Sansovino; the Marciana library created to house manuscripts donated to the city in 1468 (and still consultable today) by the Greek cardinal Bessarion; and the imposing Campanile (bell-tower) of St Mark with the loggia built by Sansovino.
Continuing on behind the bell-tower are the law courts (Procuratie Nuove), and the Ala Napoleonica whose building necessitated the removal of the Church of St Geminiano to make space for a ballroom. Facing the Procuratie Nuove are the Procuratie Vecchie (Old Law Courts): the ground floor gallery is full of shops and restaurants, while the upper storeys house offices, as in the past. Under the arches is caffè Quadri, founded in 1755 and counterposed to caffè Florian on the other side of the square. Further on is the Clock tower in piazzetta dei Leoncini with the headquarters of the Curia Patriarcale.
Subject to flooding during times of acqua alta, the piazza is today completely paved with blocks of trachyte, but in ancient times it was covered with bricks, some laid in herringbone formation, others simply placed side by side. The flooring has been raised several times.
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