St. Mark's Square

Trip to Italy - Journal Entry #14 - September 24, 2009 - 10:55 pm

This afternoon, we spent several hours at St Mark's Square. We started in the Basilica San Marco. The main attraction here are the gilded mosaic tile pictures in the roof/ceiling. Unfortunately, either due to poor lighting or age, the panels are not very distinct. You're almost better off looking at photographs taken under full light. The most enjoyable part of our tour was the time we spent in the museum on the second floor where we saw illuminated choral books and, most impressive, the four bronze horses that were originally mounted on the front of the Basilica. They are huge and powerful -- really impressive.

We next went to the Doge's Palace where we paid extra for the audio tour phones (which provided a pre-recorded "tour" of the Palace and some armament rooms. We walked through the entire Palace and learned about all the different meeting rooms of the various Venetian government boards and panels of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Doge was the ruling

leader of Venice. He was "elected" by the most prominent families and political leaders of the community. This would appear to be a much coveted position, but the Doge's life was not an easy one. He had tremendous responsibilities and his personal freedom was greatly limited. He was rarely allowed to leave the Palace and even rarer still was he able to leave Venice.

Also as part of this tour, we walked over the Bridge of Sighs and into the prison. This near medieval prison was as bad as you might expect -- dark, barren and smelly! I was glad to get out of there.

One particularly annoying thing about Venice is some of the placement of large billboard ads. There is a very nice custom throughout Europe that when an historic building is undergoing renovation, they cover the exterior scaffolding with huge sheets that contain depictions

of the building facade that is under renovation. It's a really neat effect and it turns something unsightly into something interesting. Venice has an unpleasant twist on this practice. here, they sell advertising rights to the sheets covering the scaffolding. And so, in St. Mark's Square there are two of these projects ongoing and the sheets covering the scaffolding, instead of mirroring the building facades behind, are huge billboard ads for Guess jeans. To add insult to injury, there is also work taking place on the Bridge of Sighs, and three massive panels advertising Chopard jewelry cover the bridge and the walls on either side of the Bridge. It's

awful! I can't believe anyone thought this was a good idea. I can only hope that the city is being paid millions for the advertising rights.