Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

On the west side of Piazzetta San Marco is the building that Palladio thought was the most beautiful in the world since the temples of antiquity: Sansovino’s Biblioteca, begun in 1536 and finished by Vincenzo Scamozzi in 1591.

Made of white Istrian stone, the Biblioteca is the key High Renaissance building in Venice, notable not only because it recalls ancient Roman structures with its Doric and Ionian orders, frieze, and statues on the balustrade, but for the play of light and shadow in its arcades.

Sansovino’s training as a sculptor didn’t always prepare him for some of the finer points of architecture, and in 1545 the vaulted ceiling in the main hall came crashing down (it has now been carefully reconstructed). The Council of Ten, never very tolerant of error, tossed poor Sansovino in the clink, and he was only released after Titian and his other pals pleaded for him.