For over 20 years, Pamela Lanier's Venice, Italy Travel Guide has been your connection to Venice's tourism community with invaluable details on local attractions, restaurants, shopping, museums, history, outdoor recreation and more.
Historical Sites to See
St. Mark’s Square, the Piazza San Marco, is the heart of Venice. Tourists flock to the square to explore many of the city’s main attractions here or nearby, including St. Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, Torre dell’Orologio (Clock Tower), and Piazetta San Marco, to name a few. The Piazza San Marco is also a hot spot for crowds to gather in the evening to hear live music and enjoy the beauty of the lighted square at night.
The Basilica of San Marco was built as a tomb for St. Mark’s remains, stolen from Alexandria and brought to Venice in 828. The church’s architecture is a mixture of Byzantine, Venetian, and Roman styles and its structure consists of five gigantic arches that support five enormous domes. Finished in 1094, Basilica di San Marco houses a number of relics from all over the world and the icon of the Madonna of Nicopeia. Other points of interest include the atrium, the baptistery, the Pala d'Oro, and the Marciano Museum and the Loggia dei Cavalli.
For centuries, the Doge’s Palace, or Palazzo Ducale, was the seat of Venetian government. Barely resembling a palace and much more like a castle, the Palazzo Ducale was first built in the ninth century though it wasn’t until the mid-13th to mid-14th century that the present building took shape. The building is elaborately decorated with carvings of beasts, flowers, and representations of the months of the year. Once inside the palace, visitors walk through the area where Doges were crowned after a service at St. Mark’s and through the Doge’s private rooms where they met with foreign dignitaries.
One of the greatest churches in Venice is St. Mary of the Friars, the Basilica de Santa Maria Glorioso dei Farari. This Italian Gothic style church with a plain Franciscan emphasis on poverty houses many wonderful works of Venetian Renaissance Art.
