The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

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San Marco
Enclosed by the lower loop of the Canal Grande, the sestiere of San Marco – a
rectangle smaller than 1000m by 500m – has been the nucleus of Venice for
more than a millennium. When, in the early years of the ninth century, the
lagoon settlers decamped from the coastal town of Malamocco to settle on
the safer islands of the inner lagoon, the area now known as the Piazza San Marco
was where their rulers built the citadel that evolved into the Palazzo Ducale, and
it was here that they established their most important church – the Basilica di San
Marco. Over the succeeding centuries the Basilica became the most ostentatiously
rich church in Christendom, and the Palazzo Ducale grew to accommodate and
celebrate a system of government that endured for longer than any other republican
regime in Europe. Meanwhile, the setting for these two great edifices developed into
a public space so grandiose that no other square in the city was thought fit to bear the
name “piazza” – all other Venetian squares are campi or campielli.
Nowadays the Piazza is what keeps the city solvent. Fifty percent of Venice’s visitors
make a beeline for this spot, spend a few hours and a pocketful of euros here,
then head for home without staying for even one night. For those who do hang
around, San Marco has multitudinous ways of easing the cash from the pockets:
the plushest hotels are concentrated in this sestiere; the most elegant and exorbitant
cafés spill out onto the pavement from the Piazza’s arcades; the most extravagantly
priced seafood is served in this area’s restaurants; and the swankiest shops in Venice
line the Piazza and the streets radiating from it – interspersed with dozens of
hugely profitable souvenir suppliers.
And yet, small though this sestiere is, it harbours plenty of refuges from the
assaults of commerce. Even within the Piazza you can escape the crush, as the
Museo Correr is rarely crowded and the adjoining archeological museum sees
barely a soul. The Renaissance church of San Salvador – only a few minutes’
walk from the Piazza – and the Gothic Santo Stefano are both magnificent and
comparatively neglected buildings, while San Moisè, Santa Maria del Giglio and
the Scala del Bovolo rank among the city’s most engaging oddities.
On the fringes of the sestiere you’ll find two of Venice’s major exhibition spaces:
the immense Palazzo Grassi, where the city’s most prestigious cultural exhibitions
are held, and the Museo Fortuny, which as well as staging special events also
contains a permanent collection of work by the designer Mariano Fortuny.
san marco The Piazza
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The Piazza
When the first Palazzo Ducale was built, in the ninth century, the area now occupied
by the Piazza San Marco was an islet known as Morso. Two churches stood
here – San Teodoro and San Geminiano – but most of the land was covered by the
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