Editing Piazza San Marco (section)

===From the Renaissance to the fall of the Republic (1490–1797)===
In 1493 an astronomical clock was commissioned by Venice and it was decided to install it in a new [[St Mark's Clocktower|clocktower]] in the Piazza with a high archway beneath it leading into the street known as the Merceria, which leads to the Rialto. The building, which was probably designed by Codussi, was started in 1496, a section of the original Procuratie being demolished for the purpose.<ref>Howard (2002) pp. 146–148</ref> The building was completed with the clock installed by February 1499. It can be seen, flanked by the original Procuratie building, in [[Jacopo de' Barbari|de Barbari]]'s woodcut of Venice in 1500. The Procuratie then were only two storeys high and the tower stood higher above them than it does today.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

[[File:DeBarbari pducale.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|The Piazza & Piazzetta in 1500 with the newly completed Clocktower but the original 13th-century Procuratie (from [[Jacopo de' Barbari|de Barbari]]'s woodcut of Venice)]]
Buildings on either side to support the tower were added by 1506 and in 1512, when there was a fire in the old Procuratie, it became obvious that the whole range would have to be rebuilt.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

Although Venice was then at war with much of Europe ([[War of the League of Cambrai]]) the whole of the south side of the Piazza was rebuilt, starting in 1517. The new buildings, known today as the Procuratie Vecchie, were three storeys high instead of two. Like the previous Procuratie they had an arcade on the ground level with two windows above each arch, but without the high Byzantine arches and with classical details.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

In 1527 [[Jacopo Sansovino]] came to Venice, fleeing from the [[Sack of Rome (1527)|sack of Rome]], and by 1529 he had been appointed as Proto (consultant architect and buildings manager) to the Procurators of St. Mark.<ref>Howard (1975) pp. 1–2</ref> The Procurators wished to rebuild the old buildings on the south side of the Piazza, but Sansovino persuaded them that the opportunity should be taken to enlarge the Piazza and that these buildings should be demolished and the building line moved back clear of the campanile. He also convinced them that the old hostelries and shops on the west side of the Piazzetta opposite the Doge's Palace should be replaced by a new building worthy of the site. It was decided that the [[Biblioteca Marciana|library of books and manuscripts]], which had been bequeathed to the city by Cardinal Bessarion but had still not found a permanent home, should be housed there and Sansovino originally intended that the façade of this building (the Libreria) should eventually be continued along the south side of the Piazza and round the south-west corner as far as the church of San Geminiano in the middle of the west side.<ref>Howard (1975) pp. 14–15</ref> These changes also made it necessary to rebuild the Loggetta and at the same time the government of Venice had commissioned Sansovino to rebuild the mint (the [[Zecca of Venice|Zecca]]) on the west side of the Libreria. All these works were proceeding together for many years after 1537. The new Loggetta was complete by 1545 and the Zecca by 1547 (though a third storey was added by 1566), but work on the Libreria was held up by the difficulty of finding new premises for the businesses which were displaced as well as by shortage of funds and only sixteen bays (out of twenty-one) had been finished before the death of Sansovino in 1570. By that date it had not yet been possible to start on the rebuilding of the south side of the Piazza beyond the Libreria.<ref>Howard (1975) pp. 8–38 on the Piazza, Libreria and the Loggetta and pp. 38–47 on the Zecca</ref>

[[File:Quadri-Moretti, Piazza San Marco (1831), 08.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The west end of the Piazza with the church of San Geminiano, as it was from 1640 to 1807 (print from Quadri-Moretti, 1831)]]
Sansovino also completed the rebuilding of the old church of San Geminiano at the west end of the Piazza, facing St Mark's. Much of the work had been done before he took it over in 1557, but he was responsible for the façade in white Istrian stone.<ref>Howard (1995) pp. 81–84</ref> He also continued the range of Procuratie Vecchie on the north side of the Piazza round the corner as far as this church.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

After the death of Sansovino funds were at last made available to start the rebuilding of the south side of the Piazza in its new position well clear of the campanile. His idea of a two-storey building continuing the façade of the Libreria had to be abandoned, as the Procurators required three storeys. However, [[Vincenzo Scamozzi]] based the design on the façade of the Libreria and completed ten bays between 1582 and 1586, The Procuratie Nuove (New Procuracies), as they are called, were not completed until 1640, when the remaining bays on the south side were completed and continued round the corner to the church of San Geminiano by [[Baldassarre Longhena]].<ref>Howard (1975) p. 173 and Macadam p. 80. See also M. Tafuri: ''Venice and the Renaissance'' (English edition 1989) pp. 166–169</ref>