Unlike virtually every other major Italian city, Venice was founded after the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire. The first inhabitants were refugees from the Lombard invasions of the sixth
century, and it was only during the early Middle Ages that a recognizable town began to emerge.
Venice was also unique in the closeness of its connection with Constantinople. Long after
the rest of northern Italy, Venice acknowledged the overlordship of the Eastern Roman emperors;
and even after the city drifted out of the Byzantine political orbit,
its trade and its culture retained their eastward orientation.
This eastward outlook was apparent in the cityscape. The Basilica of San Marco,
first built in the early ninth century,
was modeled on Justinian’s church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. St. Mark’s Square,
likewise, was inspired by the grand forums of the Byzantine capital.
The relationship between Venice and Byzantium took on a new dimension after 1204, when the
Fourth Crusade – carried by Venetian ships and led by the Venetian doge – captured and
sacked Constantinople. A western emperor was installed on the Byzantine throne, and Venice
was granted half the city of Constantinople and three-eighths of the former Byzantine Empire.
Over the following decades, as a mark of their newfound wealth and ambitions, and to associate
their city with the history and authority of Rome, the Venetians imported vast quantities of
stone from ancient buildings in Constantinople and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The most impressive of these antiquities were displayed in and around the Church
of San Marco and the adjoining Piazzetta, where ambassadors
and foreign dignitaries were received by representatives of the Venetian Republic.
This is the Piazzetta; and here, at what was once the water’s edge, are two granite columns,
both almost certainly from Constantinople. Inspired by the Roman, and later Byzantine,
tradition of erecting columns in public places, they bear emblems of the city’s two patron saints:
Saint Theodore – a Byzantine military saint – and Saint Mark.
Atop one of the granite columns in the Piazzetta is a winged bronze lion,
the symbol of St. Mark. By the time it was brought to Venice in the thirteenth century,
this sculpture was already at least a millennium and a half old. It seems to have come from
Cilicia – now southern Turkey – where it must have decorated a temple or an elaborate tomb.
In 1797, Napoleon – who had just conquered the Venetian Republic – ordered the lion
transported to Paris, where it became part of a fountain at the Place des Invalides. Broken
in the process of being shipped back to Venice after the Congress of Vienna,
it was reassembled and restored to its column, where it remains today.
On the other side of the Piazzetta, the south façade of San Marco gleams with marble. Much
of this is spolia – stone taken from ancient buildings – and everything that isn’t ancient
is carved to look as though it were. The most remarkable element in this façade,
which one art historian called “the trophy wall,”
are the porphyry statues of the tetrarchs embedded in one corner.
Here we have the Tetrarchs: Diocletian, Galerius, Maximian, and Constantius – the college of
emperors who preserved the empire through the crises of the late third century. You can see
how rich their costumes are – the gems on their belts, their scabbards, and even their shoes. This
sculpture likely came from Nicomedia, Diocletian’s capital, before being moved to Constantinople.
At a glance, the four statues seem almost identical. There are, however, subtle
differences. For example, two of the tetrarchs are bearded, and two are not – probably to distinguish
the senior emperors Diocletian and Maximian from their junior colleagues Galerius and Constantius.
In Constantinople, these statues were apparently displayed in a place known as the Philadelphion,
where they may have been repurposed to represent the sons of Constantine. They were brought
to Venice soon after the Fourth Crusade, as were the so-called Pilastri Acritani.
These are the Pilastri Acritani, the Pillars of Acre. As their name suggests,
they were long thought to have been taken from the Genoese at Acre,
but in fact they came from Hagios Polyeuktos in Constantinople, a sixth-century church,
built by princess Anicia Juliana, that was so spectacular Justinian’s Hagia Sophia was built
to rival it. There are other fragments on the site of the church in modern Istanbul; and like
these they’re ornamented with a spectacular array of vines, crosses, and Greek monograms.
The church of Hagios Polyeuktos, from which the columns were taken, was one of the most
spectacular buildings in Constantinople. Built by Anicia Juliana – the daughter and
granddaughter of emperors – it was a huge domed structure, richly decorated with mosaics and
reliefs. It was apparently in ruins by the 13th century, when the Venetians plundered its stone.
The so-called Lilly Capitals also from Hagios Polyeuktos. Beside them is another relic almost
certainly from Constantinople: this truncated porphyry column.
The truncated porphyry column a short distance from the Pilastri Acritani is
known as the Pietra del Bando. Said, like the pillars beside it, to have come from Acre,
it was probably another spoil of Constantinople, and may have belonged to one of the columns
supporting the tetrarchs. For centuries, the heads of Venetian traitors were displayed here.
This practice inspired the name of the ancient porphyry head on the balustrade
above the Pietra del Bando. Almost certainly a portrait of Justinian from Constantinople,
the head is known as La Carmagnola,
after an unfortunate fifteenth-century captain whose head was displayed on the pillar below.
There are literally hundreds of ancient columns embedded in the
façade of San Marco. Many, perhaps most, came from Constantinople.
The present basilica of San Marco was completed in the late eleventh century. Originally a plain
brick structure, it received its spectacular marble revetment over the course of the thirteenth
century, along with the most famous of its many spolia: the four gilded horses on its balcony.
Taken from the Hippodrome of Constantinople, where they may have decorated the starting
gates, the horses were probably cast as a matched set in the second or third century,
possibly for a triumphal arch of Septimius Severus. Like the Lion of St. Mark, they
were stolen by Napoleon, and only returned to Venice after the Congress of Vienna.
Like so much else in and around San Marco, the horses evoked imperial Constantinople. They
accentuated the power of the Doge – San Marco, after all, was his private chapel. But also, and
more importantly, they created a past for Venice, a Roman history that ennobled and legitimized.
In February 1438, as a sort of symbolic coda to all this triumphalism, the Byzantine emperor John
VIII visited Venice. Escorted by the Doge’s ceremonial barge, he and his advisors landed
in the Piazzetta with great fanfare. Soon after, they were shown the treasures from
Constantinople displayed in San Marco. A member of the Byzantine delegation recorded his feelings:
“These things were brought here by right of conquest after the Latins captured our
city…Those who possess them now are proud…but we, from whom they were taken, feel only sorrow.”
I have a new book: Insane Emperors, Sunken Cities, and Earthquake Machines:
more frequently asked questions about the ancient Greeks and Romans. It’s a sequel to Naked Statues,
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