(Redirected from Basilica di San Marco (Rome))
'San Marco' is a
basilica in
Rome. Devoted to
St. Mark, it was built in
336 by
Pope Mark and rebuilt in
833 by
Pope Gregory IV; the basilica, located in the small ''Piazza di San Marco'' (adjoining
Piazza Venezia), shows a
Baroque style dating back to the restorations of the 17th and 18th centuries.
History
In 336, Pope Mark built a church devoted to one of the Evangelists, his name bearer St. Mark, in a place called ''ad Pallacinas''. The church is thus recorded as ''Titulus Marci'' in the 499 synod of
Pope Symmachus.
After a restoration in
792 by
Pope Adrian I, the church was rebuilt by Pope Gregory IV in 833.
''Madama Lucrezia'' is one of the "talking statues" of Rome, and is located next to the basilica entrance. It was once the bust of a statue of the goddess
Isis, whom a temple was dedicated in Rome not far from its current place.
Besides the addition of a Romanesque belltower in
1154, the major change in the architecture of the church was ordered by the
Pope Paul II in
1465-70, when the inside and the outside of the church were restyled according to the
Renaissance taste. In that occasion the church was assigned to the Venetian people living in Rome, Paul II being a Venetian of birth.
The last major rework of the basilica was started in
1654-57 and completed by Cardinal
Angelo Maria Quirini in
1735-50. With these restorations, the church received its current Baroque decoration.
Artworks
The façade (1466) was built with marbles taken from the
Colosseum and the
Theatre of Marcellus, and is attributed to
Leone Battista Alberti.
The inside is clearly Baroque. However, the basilica shows noteworty elements of all her millenary history:
★ the apsis mosaics, dating back to Pope Gregory, show the pope, with the squared
halo of the living people, offering a model of the church to
Christ, in presence of
Mark the Evangelist,
Pope Saint Mark and other saints;
★ the wooden ceiling, with the emblem of
Pope Paul II, is the only preserved 15th century wooden ceiling in Rome, together with the one of
Santa Maria Maggiore;
★ the tomb of Leonardo Pesaro (1796) by
Antonio Canova.
References
★ ''Roma'', collection "L'Italia", Touring Editore, 2004, Milano.
See also
★
Churches of Rome
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