The Piazza di San Marco is certainly the most beautiful thing of the kind in the world.  It is a good deal in the style of the Palais Royal at Paris, and tho’ not so large, is far more striking, from the very tasteful and even sumptuous manner in which the cafes are fitted up, both internally and externally; they have spacious rooms with mirrors on all sides, some in the shape of Turkish tents, others in that of Egyptian temples.  The Piazza, forming an oblong rectangle, is arcaded on the two long sides, and of the two short ones, one presents a superb modern palace built by Napoleon, and richly adorned with the statues of all the heathen Gods on the top, which Palace was usually occupied by Eugene Napoleon; the other presents the church of St Marco and the old palace of Government, where in the time of the Republic the Doge used to reside.  The church of St Mark is unique as a temple in Europe, for it is neither Grecian nor Gothic, but in a style completely Oriental, from the singularity of its structure, its many gilded cupolas and the variety of its exterior ornaments.  At first sight it appears a more striking object than either St Peter’s in Rome or St Paul’s in London.  On the top of the facade, which is singularly picturesque, stand the four bronze horses which have been brought back from Paris to their old residence.

I ascended the top of the facade in order to examine them.  They are beautifully formed, in very good cast and have not at all been damaged by the journey.  The Piazza is paved with broad flagged stones.  The Doge’s palace is a vast building, very picturesque withal, and seems a melange of Gothic and Moorish architecture.  At right angles to it and facing the Piazzetta, which issues from the Piazza and forms a quai to the Canale Grande, stands the famous state prison and Ponte de ’Sospiri.  On the Piazzetta and fronting the landing place stand two columns of white marble, on one of which stands the winged Lion of St Marco and on the other a crocodile, emblematical of the foreign commerce and possessions of the Republic.  The space between these two columns was allotted for the execution of State criminals.  Not far from the church of St Marco, and near to that angle of the Piazza which connects it with the Piazzetta, stands the famous Campanile or Steeple of San Marco.  It is a square building 800 feet in height, from the top of which one has the best view of Venice and its adjacent isles, the distant Alps and the marina dove il Po discende.  A Quai, if Quai it may be called, which has a row of houses on each side, one row of which is on the water’s edge, leads from the Piazzetta to some gardens, which terminate on a point of land.  This Quai is very broad and well paved, and is the only thing that can be called a street in all Venice.  The Piazza di San Marco, therefore, this Quai and the garden before mentioned form the only promenades in Venice.  This garden moreover has trees, and these are the only trees that are to be met with in this city.  In this garden are two Cafes.