St Mark's square is the principal square of the city known throughout the world as the city floating on water— the romantic Venice. The square is situated in the heart of the city to the west of St Mark’s Basilica and surrounded by arcades on the other three sides and is the only one given the title of piazza. Many important government buildings are located here.
Thousands of tourists crowd the square, feeding pigeons that fill the whole area. Recently, however, the city has passed a law that banned the feeding of pigeons, for they have largely spoiled the surrounding buildings. Until recently pigeon feeding had been the most popular activity among tourists. Everywhere around the square, tourists could be seen trying to balance the birds on their hands or throwing com to them and getting them photographed.
The piazza San Marco was built in the ninth century in front of the original St Mark’s Basilica, at that time a small chapel in the Doge’s palace. A small canal flowed between the original square and the palace in those days. In 1174, the canal was filled in and the piazza was enlarged. In 1267, the square was paved with bricks; again, in 1735, architect Andrea Tirali gave it a new design using natural stones instead of bricks.
The central figure of the square is the glorious St Mark’s Basilica. Constructed upon the order of the Doge Domineco Contarini in 1071, it possesses a Venetians-Byzantine style, a combination of western and eastern styles. Because of its being adorned with excessive gold and other precious materials, it is nicknamed the tower of gold. It has a separate bell tower or campanili, nearly a hundred meter tall. Erected in the ninth century it was restructured in 1912 after it had collapsed in 1902.
The other significant building in its neighborhood is the Doge’s place. It is an attractive Gothic structure built during the early fifteenth century, but some portions of it were reconstructed after a fire damaged it in 1574. There can be seen the building in which lie the offices and apartments of the procurators, the St Mark’s library, Museum of archeology, and Corer Museum. Between the Doge’s palace and the library is located the piazzeta (small piazza) San Marco. It is famous for its two columns in the honor of two great patrons of Venice: St Mark and St Teodoro ofAmasea, and serve as the official gate way to Venice. The piazzeta had also been the site for the execution of criminals up till the middle of the eighteenth century.
Tourists spend nearly whole of the day inside the basilica as well as Doge’s place and the Correr Museum, usually halting for a drink at the Cafe Florien or Cafe Quadri. Both of these cafes present orchestra playing in open air in the square. Of these two cafes, the first one, opened in 1720, can be called the oldest cafe of Italy. Excellent services are offered here, whether in its rooms or outside in the open air. The cafe is known throughout the west for its finest quality products; such as, coffee, tea, cookies, chocolates, and fine porcelains. A restaurant having the pride of being remained totally unchanged all over the ages, the Gran Cafe Ristorant Quadri or briefly the Cafe Quadri was opened in 1775 by Giorgio Quadri. In 1830, a restaurant was opened on the upper floor of the cafe. The rooms of the ground floor are decorated with the wonderful paintings of Giuseppe Ponga, depicting the daily life of Venice in a remarkable style. The (Gran Cafe Ristorant Quadri has forced several distinguished personalities of the past to he its permanent visitors like Lord Byron, Alexander Dumas, Wagner, and Marcel Proust ns well as those of our own era as Michael Gorbachev, Francois Mitterrand, and Woody Allen etc.