Description
The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana is one of the oldest public libraries still in existence. Its finest building, the Libreria Sansoviniana, looks onto the Piazzetta di San Marco, opposite the Doge's Palace, and was built by Jacopo Sansovino between 1537 and 1588.
The two-tiered facade of arcades is the showpiece: Palladio called it "perhaps the richest and most ornate building" since ancient times. For many it is Sansovino's masterpiece and one of the most successful examples of Venetian Renaissance architecture.
Inside, the reading room has a ceiling with twenty-one roundels painted by masters such as Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, with grotesques by Battista Franco. Once, the codices were chained to 38 desks here.
The vestibule, conceived as a schoolroom, has a ceiling by Cristoforo Rosa from 1559. The grand staircase has four domes with stuccoes by Alessandro Vittoria and frescoes by Battista Franco: Ethics, Rhetoric, Dialectic and Poetics.
The collection numbers over a million works. At its core are the Greek and Latin manuscripts of Cardinal Bessarion, including Fra Mauro's world map and two famous codices of the Iliad. Since 1904 the offices, reading rooms and most of the books have been in the neighboring Zecca.
The story begins in 1468. After the fall of Constantinople, Cardinal Bessarion, who had saved many Greek texts, donated them to Venice, "another Byzantium," on condition that they be open to the public.
Venice took almost seventy years to build the home. The chosen site was occupied by five taverns and food stalls, to be moved one at a time: the last, the Leone, left in 1556.
On December 18, 1545, the vault of the new library collapsed. Sansovino blamed the workmen, who had removed the supports too soon, and a galley whose blank salute had made everything shake. The judges didn't believe him: he paid for the damage out of his own pocket.
The two-tiered facade of arcades is the showpiece: Palladio called it "perhaps the richest and most ornate building" since ancient times. For many it is Sansovino's masterpiece and one of the most successful examples of Venetian Renaissance architecture.
Inside, the reading room has a ceiling with twenty-one roundels painted by masters such as Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, with grotesques by Battista Franco. Once, the codices were chained to 38 desks here.
The vestibule, conceived as a schoolroom, has a ceiling by Cristoforo Rosa from 1559. The grand staircase has four domes with stuccoes by Alessandro Vittoria and frescoes by Battista Franco: Ethics, Rhetoric, Dialectic and Poetics.
The collection numbers over a million works. At its core are the Greek and Latin manuscripts of Cardinal Bessarion, including Fra Mauro's world map and two famous codices of the Iliad. Since 1904 the offices, reading rooms and most of the books have been in the neighboring Zecca.
The story begins in 1468. After the fall of Constantinople, Cardinal Bessarion, who had saved many Greek texts, donated them to Venice, "another Byzantium," on condition that they be open to the public.
Venice took almost seventy years to build the home. The chosen site was occupied by five taverns and food stalls, to be moved one at a time: the last, the Leone, left in 1556.
On December 18, 1545, the vault of the new library collapsed. Sansovino blamed the workmen, who had removed the supports too soon, and a galley whose blank salute had made everything shake. The judges didn't believe him: he paid for the damage out of his own pocket.