Rome - Basilica di San Marco

The Basilica di San Marco, now partly incorporated in the Palazzo Venezia, is traditionally believed to have been founded by Pope Marcus (Mark) in honor of the Evangelist in 336. Its present form results from restoration and rebuilding about 800 and in the 15th and 18th centuries. Appropriately, since St Mark is the patron saint of Venice, the Palazzo Venezia was from 1564 to 1797 the residence of the Venetian ambassador to the Holy See. Notable features of the church are the two-story portico, the campanile adjoining the tower of the Palazzo Venezia and the mosaic in the apse of Christ transmitting the Law. Dating from the time of Pope Gregory IV (827-844), this shows Christ on a dais surrounded by Apostles and saints (Gregory, being still alive, is depicted with a square nimbus), above a frieze with symbolic representations of the Lamb of the Apocalypse, amid twelve other lambs, and of two cities.