Legend, history, art and symbology swirl together in a myriad of golden mosaics in Venice’s main church: Saint Mark’s Basilica.
The relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist are still enshrined inside today, after his body was plundered from Alexandria, Egypt. Fact or fiction? Only faith will give us the answer, and such was the faith of the Venetians in their patron saint that they honoured him with a church of splendour unparalleled in the rest of the world.
Artistic beauty and riches evoke the enduring spirituality of the Christian faith. Each angle, each detail, each marble flagstone or column has a story to tell; in an instant they take us back to the sacred scriptures, to the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary and St. Mark. Led by the hand, we tread a celestial path of salvation.
But there are other routes waiting to be discovered – or rather rediscovered – because it is we who have lost the ability nowadays to interpret the signs that even the most ordinary people of the past were able to understand. Nothing was left to chance; everything had a specific meaning set deep in context. Today it’s up to us to seek out the traces of that past which we still find all around us.
Yet for all of this we need time, silence, solitude and a voice to relate the stories and reveal the hidden truths.
Amid the daily chaos of millions of tourists thronging the Basilica, this is inconceivable. But in the evening, when the hurried and oblivious sightseers leave the city and the doors of the church are opened especially for you, this dream will become a reality.
