St Mark's Basilica & Doge's Palace Private Tour

Before going in, we read the square as a stage: the Procuratie, the Campanile, the two columns of St Mark and St Theodore on the waterfront, and the Tetrarchs set into the Basilica's south wall.

Consecrated in 1094 and modeled on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, St Mark's holds the relics brought from Alexandria in 828. Under the gold domes, the mosaics span about eight centuries of styles, from Genesis in the atrium to the Pentecost dome.

Behind the high altar stands the golden altarpiece begun in Byzantium for Doge Ordelaffo Falier, enlarged in 1209 and given its present form in 1345 under Doge Andrea Dandolo, with around 250 enamels and nearly two thousand gems.

The four gilded bronze horses arrived from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade of 1204. The originals are kept inside the museum; copies stand on the loggia above the central portal, with a view over the square.

We enter the Palazzo Ducale through the Gothic gate carved by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon (1438–1442) and stop in the courtyard below Antonio Rizzo's Giants' Staircase, guarded since 1567 by Jacopo Sansovino's Mars and Neptune.

The Golden Staircase leads to the rooms of the Collegio, the Senate and the Council of Ten, where painted ceilings by Veronese and Tintoretto turned political decisions into allegory.

The Great Council Hall, rebuilt after the fire of 1577, measures about 53 by 25 meters. On its end wall is Tintoretto's Paradise, painted with his workshop between 1588 and 1592; above, Veronese's Apotheosis of Venice.

We cross the Ponte dei Sospiri, built by Antonio Contin at the start of the 17th century, into the Prigioni Nuove, and talk about justice in the Republic and Casanova's escape from the Piombi in 1756.