Old Library

The Campanile stands close to the 21 bays of the Old Library (1529, also called the National Marcian Library or the Library of St. Mark), on the western side of the piazzetta. The library was designed by Sansovino to house a great collection…

…the core of the notable Library of St. Mark. This infusion of Byzantine scholarship had a profound effect on Italian humanism. By making Greek texts and commentaries available to Western students, and by acquainting them with Byzantine methods of criticism and interpretation, the teachers from Constantinople enabled Italian humanists to…

Mark’s (also called the Old Library), one of the major architectural works of the 16th century, was begun the same year. The small but richly decorated Loggetta, also begun in the mid-1530s, was the first of the three to be completed (1542).