The Piazza - three eras of style in Venice

In a nutshell: one square, three centuries of architecture - and a dozen secrets in the paving. The grandest room in Europe in five minutes; back to the San Marco overview or straight to the Basilica.

The Piazza: three eras of style

For students of architecture, the piazza offers a compact survey of three centuries of building fashion standing cheek by jowl. Facing the basilica, the 'old' arcades - the Procuratie Vecchie, constructed around 1500 in sturdy Renaissance colonnade style - were closed to visitors for five centuries and are now being renovated to hold art exhibitions, installations and conferences. On the opposite side, the 'new' Procuratie Nuove (c. 1600) are chunkier and more lavish, weaving arches together with the three classical column orders rising in tiers - Doric, then Ionic, then Corinthian. Napoleon's wing, at the end facing away from the basilica, went up later and was deliberately made to harmonize: a dozen Roman emperors line the parapet, once joined by a statue of Napoleon himself at the midpoint, but the French ruler is long gone and the Correr Museum now occupies the wing. The colonnade encircling the whole square forms an elegant, shaded walkway. Sea and city are inseparable here, because the piazza is the first place in Venice to go underwater: tide gauges mounted on the exterior base of the Campanile display the present sea level (livello marea), and a stone tablet near the exit door records the catastrophic 77-inch flood of 1966 (another severe high tide hit 60 inches in November 2019). With a gentle tide (about 20 inches) the water merely trickles up out of the drains; a forceful tide (around 40 inches) gushes forth like a running tap and streams toward the square's lowest spots, which can be swamped within the hour. When the level climbs one meter above average sea level an alarm siren blares - and sounds again if a major flood looms. Doorways are protected by three-foot-high barriers, yet seawater still forces its way in through floors and drains; when flooding strikes, the stacked wooden benches are lined up end to end as raised walkways, and the piazza - ordinarily open to everyone - turns into a congested tangle on the slim planks. In 2006 the paving was dug up and the entire square was lifted by spreading a new bed of sand beneath the replaced stones; if the ground-floor columns of the Doge's Palace look squat, it is because this same procedure has been repeated many times across the centuries, each round gaining a little more time as the sea slowly claims the city.

• ✦Booking: expect a lengthy line nearly always; purchase a €6 timed-entry ticket online a few days ahead to leapfrog the general queue. Arrived ticketless? Scan the QR code at the 'line-skipping' entrance and buy whatever slot remains for that day on your phone.
• ✦Dress rules: modest clothing is firmly required for men, women and children - bare knees and bare shoulders are out (shorts reaching the knee are acceptable).
• ✦Schedule: Mon-Sat 9:30-17:00, Sun 14:00-17:00 (Sun until 16:30 Nov-Easter); worshippers can slip in free daily 8:00-19:30 through the Porta dei Fiori door on the north (left) flank - Mass times appear on the church's website.
• ✦For photographers: the interior is at its brightest Mon-Sat 11:30-12:45; afterward much of the mosaic work drops into shadow.
• ✦Free one-hour English tours - concentrating on the religious symbolism of the mosaics - are sometimes offered, usually at 11:00 (consult the website); audioguides run €5 at the entry.
• ✦Luggage: bags are not permitted inside - self-service lockers (€3) are on the north side; a toilet is available within the San Marco Museum.
• ✦Avoiding the crush: the piazza is deserted at 7:00 and swarming by 11:00 - go early or late. Contact: +39 041 270 8311, www.basilicasanmarco.it.

Secrets in the paving

The piazza hides a few details in full view. A faded white stone before the basilica's front doorway, inscribed 'Bomba Austriaca', records where a 1916 Austrian bomb fell without exploding. Before Caffè Lavena, another pale slab reads 'Per l'arte de Calegheri' - the 17th-century decree that fixed where shoemakers could pitch their stalls. Photographers stake out the square's northwest corner for a wide-angle shot that sweeps in the Gothic gateway of the Porta della Carta, while at the Procuratie Nuovissime arcade's far end the luck-seeking stroke a carved trophy's belly. When the flagstones were relaid in 2024, workers came upon seven skeletons, thought to be of the 7th or 8th centuries, along with wall fragments and paving remains in front of Gran Caffè Quadri - possibly the medieval San Geminiano church, pulled down in the 12th century, rebuilt by Sansovino in the 1500s, and finally razed by Napoleon in 1807 to clear the way for the wing that now houses the Correr Museum. As for the two columns of the Piazzetta, tradition adds that the 12th-century engineer Nicolò Barattieri raised them and was granted the right to run gambling tables between them as a reward; a third column, so the story goes, sank into the water of the lagoon as its transport barge capsized. Superstitious locals still avoid the space between the pair.