Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Don't Miss
Portals
Venice created the official doge's chapel in its own cosmopolitan image, with Byz-
antine onion-bulb domes, Greek cross layout and marble cladding from Syria,
Egypt and Palestine - priceless trophies from Crusades conquests and battles with
Genoa. The basilica's facade ripples and crests like a wave, its five niched portals
capped with shimmering mosaics and frothy stonework arches.
In the far-left portal, lunette mosaics dating from 1270 show St Mark's stolen
body arriving at the basilica - a story reprised in 1660 lunette mosaics on the
second portal from the right. Grand entrances are made through the central
portal, under an ornate triple arch with Egyptian purple porphyry columns and
13th- to 14th-century reliefs of vines, virtues and astrological signs.
Dome Mosaics
Blinking is natural upon your first glimpse of the basilica's glittering mosaics,
many made with 24-carat gold leaf fused onto the back of the glass to represent di-
vine light. Just inside the narthex (vestibule) glitter the basilica's oldest mosaics:
Apostles with the Madonna
, standing sentry by the main door for more than 950
years.
The atrium's medieval
Dome of Genesis
depicts the separation of sky and wa-
ter with surprisingly abstract motifs, anticipating modern art by 650 years. Last
Judgment mosaics cover the atrium vault and the Apocalypse looms large in vault
mosaics over the gallery.
Mystical transfusions occur in the
Dome of the Holy Spirit
, where a dove's
blood streams onto the heads of saints. In the central, 13th-century
Cupola of
the Ascension
, angels swirl overhead while dreamy-eyed St Mark rests on the
pendentive. Scenes from St Mark's life unfold over the main altar, in vaults flank-
ing the
Dome of the Prophets
(best seen from the Pala d'Oro).
