St Mark's Square

The square took shape around the church built for the relics of St Mark, brought from Alexandria in 828 or 829. In the 1170s Doge Sebastiano Ziani had a stream filled in and the area cleared, creating the open space of today. Around it rose the Gothic Doge's Palace, the Clock Tower completed in 1499, the Procuratie Vecchie on the north side and the Procuratie Nuove on the south. The Napoleonic Wing closing the west end was built between 1810 and 1813 and now houses the Museo Correr.

Next to the basilica, the smaller Piazzetta opens towards the lagoon. Its two granite columns, probably erected around 1268, carry Saint Theodore with a crocodile and the winged lion of St Mark. Jacopo Sansovino's Library faces the Doge's Palace across it. Caffè Florian, opened in 1720, still serves under the southern arcade.

The square floods during acqua alta, when high tides and storm surges raise the water; the 1966 flood reached 194 centimetres. Napoleon is often said, though without proof, to have called it the drawing room of Europe.