Museo di San Marco e Loggia dei Cavalli

Above the narthex of St Mark's Basilica, the museum holds the original gilded bronze horses, removed from the facade for conservation, alongside tapestries, illuminated graduals and mosaic fragments. The loggia is where the horses once faced the square.

Why it matters

Established at the end of the nineteenth century and opened to the public in 1927, the museum was rearranged in 2003 across nearly a thousand square metres, with sections devoted to mosaics, textiles and antiquities. The bronzes on the facade are replicas; the originals were removed in 1977 for restoration and have been housed in the museum since 1982 for conservation.

What to notice

Scientific examination found that the horses were cast by indirect lost-wax method in a copper alloy containing 96.67–98.35 percent copper, prepared for mercury gilding. Surface scratches may have been cut to reduce sunlight glare. Carbon-14 dating points to the early second century BC, though some scholars prefer a date between the late second and early third centuries AD. The basilica's account links the horses to the Hippodrome of Constantinople and attributes their arrival to the Fourth Crusade under Doge Enrico Dandolo; they were placed on the loggia after 1261.

The collection also includes Paolo Veneziano's Pala feriale of 1345, Flemish tapestries from Cardinal Zen's bequest, sixteenth-century Medici tapestries depicting the Stories of St Mark, seventeenth-century Persian carpets and seven illuminated graduals.

Context and history

The museum grew out of the Procurators' long custodianship of the basilica's treasures: as restorations removed fragile material — mosaic fragments from the nineteenth-century campaigns, panels, textiles — a collection formed above the church itself. The horses bring together classical antiquity, the transfer of imperial symbols from Constantinople, ancient foundry work and modern conservation. The 2003 layout integrated the Sala dei Banchetti, where the Pala feriale now sits opposite the Madonna del latte of the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, and displays Sansovino's gilded terracotta Madonna, reassembled after the 1902 collapse of the campanile. Mosaic fragments and "cassine" pieces document both the basilica's medieval techniques and its restoration history.