St. Mark's Campanile & The Piazzetta Lions: Gateway from the Sea

Why is it significant?

Stand right between the two colossal granite columns of the Piazzetta San Marco, looking out across the sparkling blue waters of the Venetian lagoon toward the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Key Facts

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Stand right between the two colossal granite columns of the Piazzetta San Marco, looking out across the sparkling blue waters of the Venetian lagoon toward the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. On the column to your left perches the winged bronze Lion of Saint Mark, and on the right stands Saint Theodore slaying a dragon with a crocodile. These two monolithic pillars were plundered from Constantinople in eleven seventy-two and erected here as the monumental sea entrance to the Serenissima. Look at the space between the two columns: in the days of the Republic, this exact paving was the execution ground where condemned criminals were hanged before crowds. To this day, superstitious Venetians refuse to walk between the two columns, believing it brings terrible bad luck! Gaze up at the ninety-eight-meter Campanile rising behind you: on July fourteenth, nineteen zero two, the original thousand-year-old tower suddenly collapsed into a heap of rubble in the middle of the piazza without injuring a soul. The city rebuilt it brick by brick, inaugurating the replica in nineteen twelve under the motto Where it was and as it was. Turn toward the intricate pink-and-white marble facade of the Doge's Palace.