St Mark's Campanile

The Loggetta is a small, richly decorated building at the base of the bell tower in Saint Mark's Square, Venice, Italy. Built by Jacopo Sansovino between 1538 and 1546, it served at various times as a gathering place for nobles and for meetings of the procurators of Saint Mark, the officials of the Venetian Republic who were responsible principally for the administration of the treasury of the Church of Saint Mark and for the public buildings around Saint Mark's Square. Because of its location directly in front of the Porta della Carta, the most important entry to the Doge's Palace, the loggetta was also used from 1569 onward as a sentry post to provide security for the assembled nobles during the meetings of the Great Council: three procurators were to be present, assisted by an armed squadron of workers from the Arsenal, the government shipyard, in order to counter any popular assault and respond to any fire. Beginning in 1734, it was additionally the site for the extraction of winning tickets in the public lottery.The loggetta was largely destroyed in the collapse of the bell tower in 1902, but it was rebuilt using what original material could be salvaged, amounting to about half of the present building. At the same time the sides, which had originally been left in plain brick as other lean-to structures backed onto them, were rebuilt in the style of the main facade. The building serves as the entrance to the tower elevator.

The National Archaeological Museum (Italian: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venezia) is a museum located right on Piazza San Marco in Venice. The National Archaeological Museum was established in 1523 by Cardinal Domenico Grimani. This Museum has a great collection of Greek and Roman sculptures, ceramics, coins and stones dating back as far as the 1st Century B.C. Some of the archeological collections from the Correr Museum are also housed here. Visitors can also view the vases, ivories, portraits of ancient Roman emperors, marbles and busts, gems and jewelry in the museum. There are relics of Assyro-Babylonian, Greek, Tuscan, Roman and Egyptian origins from the Neolithic age. Visitors can also see the Armenian-Venetian collection, legal texts dating back to the 17th Century, and bilingual dictionaries.

Founded following the resolution passed by the Municipal Council Board of Venice on March 3, 2008, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE) manages and develops the cultural and artistic heritage of Venice and islands. Formed as a participatory foundation, it has only one founding member, the City of Venice.

St Mark's Clock is housed in the Clock Tower on the Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square) in Venice, Italy, adjoining the Procuratie Vecchie. The first clock housed in the tower was built and installed by Gian Paolo and Gian Carlo Rainieri, father and son, between 1496 and 1499, and was one of a number of large public astronomical clocks erected throughout Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. The clock has had an eventful horological history, and been the subject of many restorations, some controversial. After restorations in 1551 by Giuseppe Mazzoleni, and in 1615, by Giovanni Battista Santi, the clock mechanism was almost completely replaced in the 1750s, by Bartolomeo Ferracina. In 1858 the clock was restored by Luigi De Lucia. In 1996, a major restoration, undertaken by Giuseppe Brusa and Alberto Gorla, was the subject of controversy, amid claims of unsympathetic restoration and poor workmanship.

The Horses of Saint Mark (Italian: Cavalli di San Marco), also known as the Triumphal Quadriga or Horses of the Hippodrome of Constantinople, is a set of bronze statues of four horses, originally part of a monument depicting a quadriga (a four-horse carriage used for chariot racing). The horses were placed on the facade, on the loggia above the porch, of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, northern Italy after the sack and looting of Constantinople in 1204. They remained there until looted by Napoleon in 1797 but were returned in 1815. The sculptures have been removed from the facade and placed in the interior of St Mark's for conservation purposes, with replicas in their position on the loggia.

The Zecca (English: Mint) is a sixteenth-century building in Venice, Italy which once housed the mint of the Republic of Venice. Built between 1536 and 1548, the heavily rusticated stone structure, originally with only two floors, was designed by Jacopo Sansovino in place of an earlier mint specifically to ensure safety from fire and to provide adequate security for the silver and gold deposits. Giorgio Vasari considered it the finest, richest, and strongest of Sansovino's buildings ("...bellissimo, ricchissimo, e fortissimo edificio de' suoi è la Zecca di Venezia...").Coin production continued after the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797 but ceased in 1852 during the second period of Austrian domination (1814–1866). The building was subsequently adapted and served as the seat for the Chamber of Commerce from 1872 until 1900. Since 1904, it has housed the main part of the Marciana Library whose historical building, next door is now largely a museum.

The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark (Italian: Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as Libreria pubblica di san Marco) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and holds one of the world's most significant collections of classical texts. It is named after St Mark, the patron saint of the city. The library was founded in 1468 when the humanist scholar Cardinal Bessarion, bishop of Tusculum and titular Latin patriarch of Constantinople, donated his collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic of Venice, with the stipulation that a library of public utility be established. The collection was the result of Bessarion's persistent efforts to locate rare manuscripts throughout Greece and Italy and then acquire or copy them as a means of preserving the writings of the classical Greek authors and the literature of Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. His choice of Venice was primarily due to the city's large community of Greek refugees and its historical ties to the Byzantine Empire. The Venetian government was slow, however, to honour its commitment to suitably house the manuscripts with decades of discussion and indecision, owing to a series of military conflicts in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries and the resulting climate of political uncertainty. The library was ultimately built during the period of recovery as part of a vast programme of urban renewal aimed at glorifying the republic through architecture and affirming its international prestige as a centre of wisdom and learning. The original library building is located in Saint Mark's Square, Venice's former governmental centre, with its long façade facing the Doge's Palace. Constructed between 1537 and 1588, it is considered the masterpiece of the architect Jacopo Sansovino and a key work in Venetian Renaissance architecture. The Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio described it as "perhaps the richest and most ornate building that there has been since ancient times up until now" ("il più ricco ed ornato edificio che forse sia stato da gli Antichi in qua"). The art historian Jacob Burckhardt regarded it as "the most magnificent secular Italian building" ("das prächtigste profane Gebäude Italiens"), and Frederick Hartt called it "one of the most satisfying structures in Italian architectural history". Also significant for its art, the library holds many works by the great painters of sixteenth-century Venice, making it a comprehensive monument to Venetian Mannerism.Today, the building is customarily referred to as the 'Libreria sansoviniana' and is largely a museum. Since 1904, the library offices, the reading rooms, and most of the collection have been housed in the adjoining Zecca, the former mint of the Republic of Venice. The library is now formally known as the Biblioteca nazionale Marciana. It is the only official institution established by the Venetian Republican government that survives and continues to function.

The Clock Tower in Venice is an early Renaissance building on the north side of the Piazza San Marco, at the entrance to the Merceria. It comprises a tower, which contains the clock, and lower buildings on each side. It adjoins the eastern end of the Procuratie Vecchie. Both the tower and the clock date from the last decade of the 15th century, though the mechanism of the clock has subsequently been much altered. It was placed where the clock would be visible from the waters of the lagoon and give notice to everyone of the wealth and glory of Venice. The lower two floors of the tower make a monumental archway into the main street of the city, the Merceria, which linked the political and religious centre (the Piazza) with the commercial and financial centre (the Rialto). Today it is one of the 11 venues managed by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

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.

Caffé Lavena is a café in the city of Venice, Italy. It was established in 1750, and was originally called Regina d'Ungheria (the Queen of Hungary) under the Austro-Hungarian empire. The café has its origins in the popular Venice of the 17th century, it became later Orso Coronato (Crowned Bear) because of the picturesque sign showing a bear standing on his hind legs with a crown on its head. In 1860, Carlo Lavena bought the cafè and it has remained in his family ever since.

Lectionary 142, designated by siglum ℓ 142 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering) is a Greek manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment leaves. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 14th century.

The Patriarchate of Venice (Italian: Patriarcato di Venezia; Latin: Patriarchatus Venetiarum), also sometimes called the Archdiocese of Venice, is a patriarchate of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, located in the Metropolitan City of Venice. Its episcopal seat is in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Mark in Venice. One of only four extant patriarchates in the Latin Church, its ordinary is the Patriarch of Venice, who is traditionally created a cardinal by the pope. Immediately upon installation in office, however, the Patriarch of Venice has the right to wear scarlet vesture (like a cardinal), whether or not he has yet been elevated to the College of Cardinals. As a metropolitan, the Patriarch of Venice is the metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Venice. Its suffragan dioceses include Adria-Rovigo, Belluno-Feltre, Chioggia, Concordia-Pordenone, Padova, Treviso, Verona, Vicenza, and Vittorio Veneto. In 1451 the Patriarchate of Grado was merged with the Bishopric of Castello and Venice to form the Patriarchate of Venice.