Eastern Influence

As a port, Venice became a conduit for Eastern ideas. The merger of east and west can be found in her religious, political and military history but more immediately in the art and culture of the city. Her buildings especially the shapes of arches and arcades on St. Mark’s Square reveal the pointed shapes and Moorish embellishments. Byzantine mosaics fill the Basilica and pigeons, the rats of the air, fill the square.

My husband Paul stands amid the arched colonnade of St. Marks's Square surrounded by the tourists and the ever present pigeons.