St. Mark's Cathedral

St. Mark's Cathedral is a unique cathedral of Venice, which was a court chapel at the Doge's Palace until 1807. It is the rarest example of Byzantine architecture in Western Europe. The temple is located on St. Mark’s Square, near the Doge’s Palace.

The cathedral is decorated with numerous mosaics, which are made in the Byzantine style and is the place of storage of the relics of St. Mark, as well as many valuable art objects that were taken from Constantinople during the Crusades. In 1987, the temple became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The lengthy construction of the cathedral influenced its architectural style. At first it was erected as a Greek classical basilica, having a harsh Romanesque facade, but over the years it acquired its modern image, in which a variety of styles mixed. This can be explained by the fact that the decoration of the temple used oriental marble and columns, as well as Romanesque and Greek bas-reliefs brought at different times to Venice. In the architecture of the building there are Italian and Byzantine sculptures.