°°°°° Basilica di San Marco

The Iconographic Repertory

The mosaic decoration of the entire upper part of the architecture of St. Mark's - an area of around 8.000 square metres - is fruit of one unifying idea.
Scholars agree that the grand iconographical plan of the interior was already completed in the course of the 12th century. The mosaics in the interior recount the events of the New Testament, with the great message of Christian salvation.
The mosaics in the atrium, carried out afterwards, during the 13th century, are a meditation on the Old Testament, in particular the books of Genesis and Exodus, and are well located as precursor of and preparation for the interior.
Interwoven with this main plan one identifies many others: the story of the Virgin, the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Clement, the events of St. John the Evangelist's life and those of John the Baptist and St. Isadore, the great pantheon of saints worshipped by the Venetians and, most important of all, the cycles with the legend of St. Mark.
The gold background of the mosaics does not only give unity to the mosaics themselves but, in accordance with the oriental conception, has a precise symbolic value as the colour of the Divine, the image of that light which, for the theologians and Fathers of the mediaeval church, was God himself.