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Riva degli Schiavoni

Geography of VeniceVeneto geography stubs
0 Venise, Bacino di San Marco, Castello et Riva degli Schiavoni
0 Venise, Bacino di San Marco, Castello et Riva degli Schiavoni

The Riva degli Schiavoni is a waterfront area in Venice, Italy. There is a lively—albeit often overcrowded—promenade along the waterfront, which sits on St. Mark's Basin. It was originally built in the ninth century from dredged silt and was named for the Slavic men who brought cargo to Venice from across the Adriatic Sea. Many of the boats and launches that ferry tourists from the mainland and cruise ships stop at the Riva to allow passengers to disembark close to Piazza San Marco. There are other landmarks named after the early Slav merchants such as Palazzo Schiavoni, Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, and a naval detachment of oltremarini, a mercenary group of Slavs either from the Montenegrin or Dalmatian litoral who as uskoks decided to join the Republic of Venice and fight a common enemy in the Candian Wars. Also, today Schiavone is a common Italian surname. In Italian schiavona is a basket-hilted sword.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Riva degli Schiavoni (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Riva degli Schiavoni
Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice Venezia-Murano-Burano

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

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N 45.4338 ° E 12.3419 °
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Palazzo Dandolo

Riva degli Schiavoni
30120 Venice, Venezia-Murano-Burano
Veneto, Italy
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0 Venise, Bacino di San Marco, Castello et Riva degli Schiavoni
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Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs
Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs

The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs is a porphyry sculpture group of four Roman emperors dating from around 300 AD. The sculptural group has been fixed to a corner of the façade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy since the Middle Ages. It probably formed part of the decorations of the Philadelphion in Constantinople, and was removed to Venice in 1204 or soon after. Spolia from the Fourth Crusade, the statues were originally designed as two separate sculptures, each consisting of a pair of armoured late Roman emperors embracing one another. The paired statues stand on plinths supported by a console of the same stone, and their backs are engaged in the remains of large porphyry columns to which the statues were once attached, carved all of a piece. The columns no longer exist, and one emperor pair is missing part of the plinth and an emperor's foot, which has been found in Istanbul. One statue pair has been sliced vertically and is missing a large portion of the right-hand emperor's right side, while another vertical slice divides the two figures and has sawn through their embracing arms. The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs probably depicts the four rulers of the Empire instituted by Emperor Diocletian – the first Tetrarchy. He appointed as co-augustus Maximian; they chose Galerius and Constantius I as their caesares; Constantius was father to Constantine the Great. There is disagreement as to the identity of these statues and their placement, but it is suggested that the Eastern rulers form a pair and the Western rulers form the other pair, each pair consisting of the senior augustus and the junior caesar. Another possibility is that the two augusti are depicted in one pair and the two caesares in the other. A third, older theory is that they represent a dynastic group of the Constantinian dynasty.

St Mark's Basilica
St Mark's Basilica

The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark (Italian: Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco), commonly known as St Mark's Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco; Venetian: Baxéłega de San Marco), is the cathedral church of the Catholic Patriarchate of Venice; it became the episcopal seat of the Patriarch of Venice in 1807, replacing the earlier cathedral of San Pietro di Castello. It is dedicated to and holds the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of the city. The church is located on the eastern end of Saint Mark's Square, the former political and religious centre of the Republic of Venice, and is attached to the Doge's Palace. Prior to the fall of the republic in 1797, it was the chapel of the Doge and was subject to his jurisdiction, with the concurrence of the procurators of Saint Mark de supra for administrative and financial affairs. The present structure is the third church, begun probably in 1063 to express Venice's growing civic consciousness and pride. Like the two earlier churches, its model was the sixth-century Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, although accommodations were made to adapt the design to the limitations of the physical site and to meet the specific needs of Venetian state ceremonies. Middle-Byzantine, Romanesque, and Islamic influences are also evident, and Gothic elements were later incorporated. To convey the republic's wealth and power, the original brick façades and interior walls were embellished over time with precious stones and rare marbles, primarily in the thirteenth century. Many of the columns, reliefs, and sculptures were spoils stripped from the churches, palaces, and public monuments of Constantinople as a result of the Venetian participation in the Fourth Crusade. Among the plundered artefacts brought back to Venice were the four ancient bronze horses that were placed prominently over the entry. The interior of the domes, the vaults, and the upper walls were slowly covered with gold-ground mosaics depicting saints, prophets, and biblical scenes. Many of these mosaics were later retouched or remade as artistic tastes changed and damaged mosaics had to be replaced, such that the mosaics represent eight hundred years of artistic styles. Some of them derive from traditional Byzantine representations and are masterworks of Medieval art; others are based on preparatory drawings made by prominent Renaissance artists from Venice and Florence, including Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Uccello, and Andrea del Castagno.