The archaeology of Piazza San Marco, one of the world’s most renowned locations, is far from well understood. However, ongoing excavation surveys between 2023 and 2024, taking advantage of the restoration of the paving stones (known as masegni) by the municipality of Venice, are enriching the history of the heart of the Serenissima with significant archaeological data.
Watch the video report on the update of archaeological excavations in Piazza San Marco (subtitles in English)
The market, San Geminiano, and the ancient inhabitants of Venice
On March 20, archaeologists excavating in front of Caffè Quadri found the first coin to emerge from the archaeological dig in recent years at San Marco. It is currently illegible, awaiting possible restoration “miracles”, but is undoubtedly of little value, essentially a marketplace coin.
Indeed, beneath the modern pavement, the brick plinths that supported the market stalls in the Square since the Renaissance have emerged. These stalls are still visible in the famous paintings of eighteenth-century vedutisti like Canaletto.
At first glance, the layer appears consistent with medieval dating, but it will be a challenge for numismatists. Certainly, just a few centimeters below the surface, the excavation breathes life into the splendors of the Serenissima, almost allowing one to hear the voices of the vendors and see them at work, thanks also to another small artifact, likely a balance weight.
Furthermore, the excavation, which meticulously follows the repositioning of the paving stones by the municipality after necessary restoration, continues the important work of searching for the lost church of San Geminiano. This church, though with a different building but the same dedication, was depicted in eighteenth-century prints where the Napoleon Wing of the Correr Museum now stands, before Napoleon had it demolished for his representation needs.
Transformations of the square
The medieval chuerch, instead, was demolished by the decision of the doge, namely by those who governed Venice, precisely to create the monumental square we know in front of the Basilica of San Marco.
The late 19th-century excavations, mainly by Federico Berchet, indeed found some walls re-emerging in current investigations, but only now is the hypothesis that they belong to the church significantly reinforced thanks to archaeological discoveries. The numerous burials indicate the typical clustering of tombs around and inside the church. These are medieval tombs, sometimes made with Roman spoliated material, as often occurred in nearby Altino.
Upcoming excavations
Additional tombs will be excavated in the coming weeks, and their arrangement already shows that many were intercepted, literally cut, by later tombs. Thus, there are even older inhabitants of Venice buried in Piazza San Marco, who can tell much to anthropologists: diet, diseases, age, any heavy work done, gender, and sometimes social status.
These crucial data for population studies are capable of narrating human remains, thanks to the disciplines that contribute to archaeology. They are, if you think about it, those same forgotten inhabitants who, under the platforms of Caffè Quadri and other establishments, are now almost perennially immersed in the lagoon’s water and offer a picture of great interest in the study of the Venetian population.
The study of ancient human remains is not an end in itself but very useful for answering questions that sometimes not even the rich Venetian archival documentation can address.
A new archaeological map of Piazza San Marco in the making
One piece at a time, one excavation at a time, the excavations by the Superintendence return important parts of the archaeological mosaic present under Piazza San Marco.
In just 50/60 centimeters, archaeologists find, literally compressed, almost 1000 years of history (at least until the 12th century): nineteenth-century, eighteenth-century, Renaissance pavements, medieval church, and then, immediately in contact with the lagoon water, the tombs, which now seem to go even deeper (and into the technical difficulties of an excavation immersed in mud and seawater like this one).
Doing archaeology in Venice
Archaeology in Venice is very different from many urban excavations due to its peculiarities, its extremely thin yet readable stratifications, dominated by the whims of the lagoon, subsidence, changing sea levels, and continuous work in the urban fabric.
Nothing can be compared, for example, to the meters and meters of stratigraphy recorded in Rome, 12, 14, 16m… Just look down from Via dei Fori Imperiali for a visual comparison, where the contemporary city runs on asphalt, Renaissance buildings seem to float very high, after the excavations, on the ground level of the imperial city, and further investigations go much deeper, to the Republic and even earlier, to the Lapis Niger.
In San Marco, with the space of a step, one descends a thousand years, with another, one is already immersed in the lagoon, especially those times when there is no high water, which further changes the “watery” perception of the Piazza San Marco area.
Note on excavations in Piazza San Marco
EXCAVATION IN PIAZZA SAN MARCO – 2024 – Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape for the Municipality of Venice and the Lagoon – Dr. Fabrizio Magani, Dr. Sara Bini.
Semper s.r.l., Cinzia Rampazzo, Andrea Giommoni, Danilo Vitelli, Dr. Maurizio Marinato
Thanks to the Municipality of Venice.
Mosaics Discovered at the Roman Villa in Bibione on the Coast of Venice