St Mark’s Basilica, Venice
St Mark’s Basilica is dedicated to and holds the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of the city, who were removed from Alexandria in Egypt by two Venetian merchants and transferred to Venice in 828.
16 windows in each of the 5 domes
The interior of the domes, the vaults, and the upper walls were slowly covered with gold-ground mosaics depicting saints, prophets, and biblical scenes.
Many of these mosaics were later retouched or remade, such that the mosaics represent 800 years of artistic styles.
In 1434, a large Chinese fleet, led by Grand Admiral Zheng He, as the ambassador of the Chinese Yongle Emperor, arrived in Venice, then the Center of the western world.
A mass of information was given by the Chinese delegation to the Pope and his entourage – concerning world maps (used by Columbus, Cook, Magellan) astronomy, mathematics, art, printing, architecture, steel manufacture, civil engineering, military machines, surveying, cartography, genetics, etc.
This gift of knowledge sparked the European Renaissance: Da Vinci’s inventions, the Copernican revolution, Galileo, etc.
Europeans embraced Chinese intellectual ideas, discoveries, and inventions, which formed the basis of European civilization just as much as Greek thought and Roman law.
