Basilica di San Marco, Venice

Horses of St. Mark

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The real horses of St. Mark (the ones on the facade are replicas), displayed in a museum in an upper gallery of the basilica only since the 1990s. These triumphal Greco-Roman figures - made from bronze covered in gold - graced the Hippodrome in Constantinople (Istanbul) until they were looted by the Venetians during the Fourth Crusade. They had to be decapitated in order to fit them on the boats - the collars were added by the Venetians to cover the seam where they were reattached.

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