St Mark’s Square often known as “Piazza San Marco” is the principal square located in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited and photographed attractions in Italy. St Mark’s Square is also termed as “the drawing room of the world” which conveys perfect impression of city’s culture and architecture history.
The city originated in the ninth century as a small area in front of a cathedral church “St Mark’s basilica”. St Mark’s Square is the heart of Venice as it is located on the banks of the Grand Canal. Politically, St Mark’s Square has been a very important place for the people living there and it was enlarged to its present size and shape in the year 1177. It was an important and strategic location for the offices in the Venetian state since nineteenth century. As we go through the square, we find two columns where there are two symbols of Venice namely St Mark’s lion and the statue of St Theodore along with the patriot saint of Venice. The St Mark’s Square was used for public meetings the square is now filled with pigeons and thousands of tourists all over the world. St Mark’s Square is surrounded by the buildings called “Procuratia” which consists of offices and apartments of officials in the Venetian government. Campanile, a watch tower with a height of 314 feet was built in the ninth century, which Galileo used for his work. This watch tower collapsed and was rebuilt in 1902.
St Mark’s Square is covered by arcades on three sides and St Marks church on the eastern side. During the daytime, its filled up lots of visitors, pigeons and continuous music playing around the area. One can spend a complete day with complete satisfaction. We can see a huge number of visitors feeding the pigeons which is a major activity around the square and tourists can purchase the packets of corns from the vendors situated around. Recently, the government has passed a law to ban feeding the pigeons as they cause damage the Mosaics on St Mark’s Basilica and to the other buildings of square. St Mark’s Square has full of life and history surrounded by the major sights of Italy and it should not be missed.