After-Dark Guided Tour of St. Mark’s Basilica with Art Historian Franca Lugato

A special tour provides a unique opportunity for members to explore St. Mark’s Basilica after dark, magnificently lit up for the occasion and immersed in an evocative nighttime atmosphere, led by art historian Franca Lugato.

St. Mark’s Basilica stands as the definitive symbol of Venice, a place of faith and memory for Venetians that captivates visitors through its unique charm. The ducal chapel until the eighteenth century, St. Mark’s bears testimony to religious and secular history of La Serenissima, taking San Pietro di Castello’s place as the city’s cathedral in 1807. The first church, which dates to the dogeship of Agnello Particiaco, was designed as a martyrium to house the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist, brought to Venice from Alexandria in 828.
Over the centuries, the basilica was modified, enlarged, clad in marble, and decorated with columns and statues, resulting in a unique sum of different artistic and architectural elements. In the late nineteenth century, John Ruskin described it as a “precious reliquary, a prayer book illuminated in gold and alabaster.” St. Mark’s most striking feature is its extraordinary Byzantine-style mosaic decoration—8,000 square meters of glass mosaics on a gold ground, creating one of the world’s most impressive interior spaces.
This awe-inspiring and contemplative tour includes the ninth-century crypt, a sacellum that has housed the body of Saint Mark for centuries, as well as a close-up view of the extraordinary Pala d’Oro. This work of Venetian fourteenth-century goldsmithery, featuring Byzantine cloisonné ornaments on gold leaf, includes 1,927 precious gems decorating its surface, making it one of the world’s foremost works of goldsmith art.

note

• Members only.
• Donation of 70€.
• The tour is in Italian.