When I recently visited Venice for the first time, I soon realized why people say the city itself is the star: all the individual components need the others to make Venice the unique place it is. But there is (at least ) one exception to this, and that is San Marco. The cathedral is a binary to the city itself -- and perhaps its sun. And it's not just the architecture...
Already in awe of the building, we went to the principal mass at St. Mark's, and were impressed by two immediate observations. First of all was the attention to welcoming visitors: a polyglot nun greeting us before the liturgy, friendly ushers, logical service leaflets (including one in English), and an obvious attention to planning, detail, and reverence.
The second observation was that visitors far outnumbered Venetian worshippers. Why? I leave that to Italian condev specialists, but the reason so many tourists turned worshippers seemed to be that we wanted to worship: we were bringing our spiritual lives on our vacations, and a holy place like San Marco was the only choice for Sunday. That day, other tourists continued to crowd the aisles in an unending parade under the mosaics; but I was blessed that the Church made a place for Christians from afar who wanted to roll up the blinds and join the chorus of angels, and archangels, and even the occasional Venetian.
Posted by mbarlowe at December 21, 2003 06:12 PM