Jacopo Sansovino, Loggetta, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1538–46 (attached to the reconstructed medieval bell tower) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
View of the Loggetta, looking toward the Piazza San Marco from the Piazetta (photo: Fred Romero, CC BY 2.0)
A “new Rome”
Venice’s famous Piazza San Marco has been painted, drawn, and photographed more thoroughly than a celebrity. This large public square has been central to Venetian life for centuries—it contains both the seat of the Venetian government (the Palazzo Ducale), and the city’s most important church (the Basilica San Marco).
It also holds a small, rich building known as the Loggetta which forms the base of the tall bell tower (campanile). It was designed by Florentine architect Jacopo Sansovino, and represented a new direction for Venetian architecture. Instead of the onion domes and ogee arches that had previously characterized Venetian structures, the Loggetta employs the classical vocabulary of ancient Greek and Roman architecture—columns, an entablature, and reliefs of ancient gods.
Map of the Mediterranean (underlying map © Google)
The classicism of the Loggetta declared a new identity for the Adriatic empire. Venice, long understood as cultural and geographically situated between East and West, in the 16th century sought a different identity as “a new Rome.”
Column capitals, spandrel figures, swag, and relief sculpture (detail), Jacopo Sansovino, Loggetta, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1538–46 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Though the Loggetta is the smallest of structures on the Piazza San Marco, it makes a large statement with bold architectural choices. Four pairs of partially engaged columns thrust forward from the lower story of the façade. Their composite capitals, already ornate, bookend classical swags hanging in carved marble over four bronze statues set in red Verona marble niches. Above an architrave banded in gray and white stone, an exaggeratedly tall attic story displays relief sculptures mythologizing Venice and its colonial territories. The forms are relentlessly classical and attest to the architect’s knowledge of the writings of 1st-century B.C.E. Roman architect Vitruvius.
Map showing the location of the Loggetta in the Piazza San Marco (aerial view; underlying map © Google)
Located between the Piazzetta facing the formal water entrance to Venice and the Piazza anchored by the Basilica San Marco, the Loggetta and other buildings on the square served as a visual representation of the Republic of Venice.
The Piazza San Marco had long been the seat of Venetian government, a religious pilgrimage site, and the setting for civic rituals such as religious processions, ceremonial reception of foreign dignitaries, and state punishments. The structures on the Piazza San Marco built the image of Venice. The opulence of the basilica spoke to the city’s wealth; the open lacey arcades of the Palazzo Ducale boasted peaceful Venice had no need for defensive architecture such as the thick walls found on Florence’s government building, the Palazzo Vecchio. Though the lagoon city made of 118 islands had no ancient Roman past, unlike most towns on the Italian peninsula mainland, the Loggetta created something more desirable: a Roman present.
Jacopo Sansovino, Loggetta, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1538–46 (attached to the reconstructed medieval bell tower) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The Loggetta project mattered enough to the Procurators of San Marco, who oversaw all the buildings on Piazza San Marco, that they purchased lavish materials. Bands of red Verona marble delineate the horizontal lines of the classical entablature and set off four bronze allegorical sculptures set in niches. Dark green verde antico marble accents the niches. Rare eastern marbles were used for the columns. The procurators’ account book suggests most of the Loggetta was built between 1538 and 1540. The marble purchases were made in 1540 and Sansovino completed the bronze niche figures by 1545. [1]
An earlier wooden loggia can be seen on the right edge of the painting. Lazzaro Bastiani, Arrival in Venice of Duke Ercole I and Alfonso I of Ferrara, 1487, oil on panel, 104.7 x 81.8 cm (Museo Correr, Venice)
Renovatio urbis
By the 16th century, the need for a dignified structure at the base of the campanile (the bell tower) was urgent. Nobles, the only social class allowed to hold governmental office, and the Procurators of Saint Mark had gathered in small structures on the piazza since the late 13th century. The Loggetta’s placement directly across from the Porta della Carta—the entrance to the Palazzo Ducale connecting the government building with the Basilica San Marco—made it a convenient gathering place for nobles and Procurators of Saint Mark. The structure prior to Jacopo Sansovino’s marble marvel left much to be desired, however. A wooden loggia was attached to the campanile in the 15th century, but its humble materials lacked gravitas and grandeur. Worse still was the general state of the piazza. In the 16th century latrines, food stalls, and even money-changing booths at the base of the campanile filled the square with the undignified sounds and motions of commerce. A plan was devised to fix this.
Titian, Doge Andrea Gritti, c. 1546–50, oil on canvas, 133.6 x 103.2 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
Refurbishing the Piazza San Marco became a top priority under Doge Andrea Gritti who reigned from 1523–38. Civic morale had flagged after a humiliating military defeat in 1509 at the Battle of Agnadello during the War of the League of Cambrai. Plague and famine further depressed Venice through the 1520s. A display of confidence and power was in order—a renovatio urbis. Piazza San Marco would look distinctively classical by the end of the 16th century.
View of Piazza San Marco and the city of Venice. The Loggetta can be seen at the base of the campanile (bell tower), opposite the Palazzo Ducale (the Doge’s palace) (photo: Wolfgang Moroder, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Fundamental to the renovatio urbis was Jacopo Sansovino, architect and sculptor, who arrived in Venice at age 41 in 1527 following the highly disruptive Sack of Rome. He quickly found work restoring the domes of the Basilica San Marco. Two years later, upon the death of the proto (the architect to the Procurators of Saint Mark), Bartolomeo Buon, the procurators appointed Sansovino his successor on April 7, 1529. Sansovino remained in Venice for the rest of his life.
As proto, Sansovino was charged with the renovations of Piazza San Marco. He brought familiarity with classical ruins from his time in Rome and familiarity with modern architects such as Bramante who also had studied Vitruvius.
The campanile had previously been jammed into a corner; Sansovino widened the piazza, which allowed pedestrians to circumambulate the campanile and Loggetta. Establishing the Loggetta as an independent monument enhanced its similarity to ancient Roman triumphal arches, which were also free-standing. The aim of transforming Venice into a new Rome involved appropriating the classical (ancient Greek and Roman) architecture of triumph.
Left: Arch of Constantine, 312–315 C.E., and older spolia, marble and porphyry, Rome (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0); right: Jacopo Sansovino, Loggetta, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1538–46 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Horses of San Marco (ancient Greek or Roman, likely Imperial Rome), 4th century B.C.E. to 4th century C.E., copper alloy, 235 x 250 cm each (Basilica of San Marco, Venice)
The triple-arched façade and partially engaged columns of the Loggetta recalled ancient Roman triumphal arches like the Arch of Constantine. This brought another image of victory into the Piazza San Marco, which already boasted an ancient bronze quadriga on the porch of Basilica San Marco, known today as the Horses of San Marco. Sansovino further echoed the 4th-century Arch of Constantine with relief sculptures in the Loggetta’s attic story. The architectural message would have been immediately understandable to 16th-century viewers foreign and local alike: Venice, no matter its recent troubles, is a triumphant state akin to the Roman Empire.
Myth of Venice and sculptural program iconography
Triumphant Venice was a core tenet the so-called “Myth of Venice,” a conglomeration of beliefs and stories portraying Venice as supernaturally destined, divinely favored, and innately virtuous. [2] Previously, Venetian art had focused on the legend of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice, and the medieval journey of his relics from Alexandria, Egypt to Venice. Following the renovatio urbis language of antiquity, the Loggetta’s architecture and iconography turned away from Christian stories in favor of classical mythology utilized as allegories for the Myth of Venice. [3]
Jacopo Sansovino, bronze sculptures of (left to right) Pallas Athena, Apollo, Mercury, and Pax (Peace) on the façade of the Loggetta, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1545 (photo: Wolfgang Moroder, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Bronze statues of Pallas Athena, Apollo, Mercury, and Pax flank the Loggetta doors facing towards the Palazzo Ducale’s Porta della Carta that leads to the Scala dei Giganti (a large ceremonial staircase inside the ducal palace). Each statue represents a virtue of the Venetian Republic. Sansovino’s son, Francesco Sansovino conveniently wrote explanations of the sculptural program in two books he published in the late 16th century. Pallas Athena’s wisdom and warrior prowess alludes to the state’s discernment and military power. Apollo, god of the unique single sun, signifies the singularity of the Venetian Republic. His role as the god of music invokes Venice’s often repeated assertion of political harmony. One might assume the god of commerce, Mercury, would refer to Venice’s extensive international trade, but Sansovino wrote that he appears on the Loggetta as an allegory of eloquence, a virtue claimed by Venetian nobility. Pax, the allegorical figure of Peace, lowers a lit torch on a pile of armor at her feet to signify that there is no need for war now that the Venetian Republic has brought about peace.
Jacopo Sansovino, relief sculptures of (left to right) Jupiter on Crete, Venice as Justice, Venus on Cyprus, framed by putti, Loggetta, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1545, marble (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The Loggetta attic story relief sculptures incorporate Venice’s colonies in the Myth of Venice messaging. According to the 16th-century arts writer Giorgio Vasari they were designed by Sansovino and executed by Girolamo Lombardo, Tiziano Minio, and Danese Cattaneo. [4] Jupiter in the left relief panel appears as an allegory of Crete because he was said to have grown up on the island; Venus appears similarly as an allegory of Cyprus on the right. Both Mediterranean islands were held by Venice in the 16th century. The central relief panel depicts an allegorical female figure of Venice with the attributes of Justice: a sword, a balance, and the lion-headed throne of Solomon, the biblical wise king. The allegorical river god figures flanking Venice-Justice make yet another imperial claim, this time to the rivers of Venice’s terrafirma (solid land) holdings on the Italian mainland.
Sansovino’s transformation of the Piazza San Marco yanked state imagery firmly into the columns, arches, and cornices of Vitruvian architecture and the Myth of Venice into the visual language of ancient Rome. Set off by the additional classicizing buildings Sansovino added to the Piazza San Marco, the Loggetta stood out as an even more opulent triumphal arch, boasting of the empire and virtues of Venice.
