S. Mark’s is described by Ruskin as an illuminated missal in mosaic.  It is also a treasury of precious stones, for in addition to every known coloured stone that this earth of ours can produce, with which it is built and decorated and floored, it has the wonderful Pala d’oro, that sumptuous altar-piece of gold and silver and enamel which contains some six thousand jewels.  More people, I guess, come to see this than anything else; but it is worth standing before, if only as a reminder of how far the Church has travelled since a carpenter’s son, who despised riches, founded it; as a reminder, too, as so much of this building is, of the day when Constantinople, where in the eleventh century the Pala d’oro was made, was Christian also.

The fine carved pillars of the high altar’s canopy are very beautiful, and time has given them a quality as of ivory.  According to a custodian, without whom one cannot enter the choir, the remains of S. Mark still lie beneath the high altar, but this probably is not true.  At the back of the high altar is a second altar with pillars of alabaster, and the custodian places his candle behind the central ones to illustrate their soft lucency, and affirms that they are from Solomon’s own temple.  His candle illumines also Sansovino’s bronze sacristy door, with its fine reliefs of the Deposition and the Resurrection, with the heads of Evangelists and Prophets above them.  Six realistic heads are here too, one of which is Titian’s, one Sansovino’s himself, and one the head of Aretino, the witty and licentious writer and gilt-edged parasite—­this last a strange selection for a sacristy door.  Sansovino designed also the bronze figures of the Evangelists on the balustrade of the choir stalls and the reliefs of the Doge’s and Dogaressa’s private pews.

There are two Treasuries in S. Mark’s, One can be seen every day for half a franc; the other is open only on Fridays and the entrance fee is, I believe, five francs.  I have not laid out this larger amount; but in the other I have spent some time and seen various priceless temporal indications of spiritual power.  There is a sword of Doge Mocenigo, a wonderful turquoise bowl, a ring for the Adriatic nuptials, and so forth.  But I doubt if such details of S. Mark’s are things to write about.  One should go there to see S. Mark’s as a whole, just as one goes to Venice to see Venice.

The Baptistery is near the entrance on the left as you leave the church.  But while still in the transept it is interesting to stand in the centre of the aisle with one’s back to the high altar and look through the open door at the Piazza lying in the sun.  The scene is fascinating in this frame; and one also discovers how very much askew the facade of S. Mark’s must be, for instead of seeing, immediately in front, the centre of the far end of the square, as most persons would expect, one sees Naya’s photograph shop at the corner.