It’s early morning in Venice, Italy. It was a grueling travel day yesterday, but we slept through the night and woke up feeling refreshed. Let’s see… first day in Venice. We need to go see Saint Mark’s Square. We’re tourists. It’s our job!
Our room looks out over a church courtyard. If I look down from our balcony, I see gondoliers gliding gently down a canal that runs behind our hotel. It’s molto tranquillo.
Piazza San Marco
To get to Saint Mark’s square, we follow part of the route we took last night to get to the hotel. Those narrow alleyways look a lot less foreboding in the daylight.
As we approached Saint Mark’s square, the streets widened. No quiet back-streets here. Now it was all hustle and bustle. Lots of people seemed to know where they were going. Not us, though.
We turned a corner and there was Saint Mark’s Square. It’s quite a sight. Hey – we’re in Italy. We should call it by its real name, “Piazza San Marco”. (“pee-AHTZ-a san marko”). Sounds so much better that way.
When you see a place like this, you have to wonder about how it came to be. In fact, how did VENICE come to be? Enquiring minds want to know! Let’s get the back-story first.
A Long Time Ago…
The year is 330 AD. Constantine is emperor of Rome. Boisterous barbarians are literally at the gate. The fall of Rome is imminent.
Constantine was no dummy. He knew if he got captured alive, he’d be spit-roasted or worse. He decided to move the capital of the Roman empire from Rome to a nice little beach town named Byzantium. Constantine took most of the Roman army with him.
When Constantine moves to a new town, he takes over and makes himself at home. That’s just the type of guy he was. He even renamed the town after himself — Constantinople. (Because he could).
From Constantinople, Constantine and his legions conquered armies for 1,000’s of miles around, eventually establishing the Byzantine Empire.
Meanwhile, in central Europe, everyone was fighting everyone. That’s just the way it was. One group of battle-hardened fighters – the Lombards – decided they’d had enough. They headed south toward the Mediterranean Sea.
The Lombards routed everyone who was unfortunate enough to cross their path, all the way down to northern Italy. Then they met up with the Byzantines. They clashed in the vicinity of where Venice is now.
There was Only One Safe Place to Be
The only safe place for regular folks was out on one of those islands where Venice is today, so that’s where lots of people resettled. If somebody wanted to get at ’em, at least they’d have to get wet.
That was way back in the 6th century AD. In the year 726, the island people elected their first official leader. They called him the “Doge,” (“doh-jeh”), from the latin word for “leader”. “Duke” comes from the same latin word.
The light-colored building near the bell tower in Saint Mark’s Square is the Doge’s Palace. The building with the arches that’s next to the Doge’s Palace is Saint Mark’s cathedral. It doesn’t look anything like cathedrals we’ve seen anywhere else.
The architecture of Saint Mark’s cathedral and the Doge’s palace has a strong Middle-Eastern influence. That’s because for many years, Venice and the “Middle-East” had a special relationship. Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good.
The most noticeable landmark here is the bell tower. Maybe it looks a little crooked? That’s because it is. The original tower was built about 1,000 years ago. They overhauled it during it’s 500-year check-up.
They must have done shoddy work, because the tower fell over in 1902. The Venetians built the tower we’re looking at now in 1912. I wonder how long this one will last?
The Gateway to Venice
If we walk around the bell tower to where the Doge’s palace is, we come to the part of the piazza that faces the lagoon. At this point, there’s a large column on either side of the piazza.
One column has a statue of a winged lion on top – the symbol of Venice. The other column is topped with a statue of Saint Mark. This area is called “The Gateway to Venice.”
The sound of people talking echo around in the piazza. Fresh air off the lagoon wafts in. Musicians playing at the two cafés on either side of the piazza take turns playing Italian classics. The music sounds great echoing through the piazza. The whole scene is molto bello.
To be continued…
Note:
The photo at the top of this post is of a painting by Canaletto of Piazza San Marco. (1720). Saint Mark’s Cathedral is at the far end of the square.
