Piazza San Marco is the only Square in Venice, chosen since ancient times as the seat of the Government, the Ducal Palace and the Basilica. It has been the scene of some of the most important religious and political activities of the Serenissima as well as the center of Venetian social life for almost a millennium. At first the Square was limited to the parvis of the Basilica, because of the presence of a canal, Rio Batario, which divided the present Square in two parts..

The present shape of the Square was established in the XII century, when Rio Batario was filled in and a dock was created for the meeting of Pope Alexander III and the Emperor Barbarossa. At North and South are located the Procuraterie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove running at North and South, while at East is found Saint Mark's Cathedral and Doge's Palace. Nearby are 2 granite columns from 1180, showing a winged lion of Saint Mark and Saint Theodor on a crocodile. The Procuratie Vecchie have kept their Reinassance features, while Procuratie Nuove include the Libreria di San Marco, designed by Jacopo Sansovino to house the codicils donated to it by Cardinal Bessarione.

Saint Mark's Basilica is one of the most valuable churches in the world, containing over 4,000 feet of mosaics covered in rubies, emeralds, marble and gold. The first church was built to celebrate the arrival of the body of St. Mark in Venice in 828, the 2nd rebuilding after a fire in 976, then rebuilt entirely and finished in 1096.

DOGE'S PALACE

The Ducal Palace was the residence of the Doge up to the fall of the Venetian Republic in I797; it was a public palace and seat of the administration of justice, It is the highest and richest symbol of Venetian civilisation, of its cultural, military, political and economic history.

All historic periods are represented in an extraordinary stratification of structural and decorative elements: from the antique foundations of the original Gothic complex, to the great halls dedicated to political life and decorated by the canvases of Veronese. Tintoretto and the great masters of the Renaissance. to the precious rooms of the Doges apartment, from the dark prisons and places of torture to the luminous loggias on the Piazza and the Lagoon.

Antonio Contino's bridge over the Rio di Palazzo was erected in the year 1600 to connect the Doge's prisons with the inquisitor's rooms in the main palace. The name was invented in the 19th Century, when Lord Byron helped to popularize the belief that the bridge's name was inspired by the sighs of condemned prisoners as they were led through it to the executioner.

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