St. Mark's Basilica

St. Mark's Basilica is the resting place of St. Mark, it used to be palace chapel of the Doge, and, at the beginning of the 19th century, the state church of the beautiful lagoon city was given the status of cathedral. It is nearly impossible to imagine a visit to Venice without a visit to this famous basilica. Of course this highlight could not be missing in the Wunderland version of Venice.

For our model builders this meant taking a trip down the lane of Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic Architecture, because this historical sacral building is subject to a variety of architectural styles. It took 25 weeks to assemble the altogether 2500 single parts into one beautiful masterpiece, now located in Wunderland Venice. The 5 hand painted domes received an extra-large amount of love and devotion. Of course, the famous icon of Madonna Nicopeia could not be missing in the Wunderland version of St. Mark's Basilica and was therefore depicted in miniature format with great care.

In front of St. Mark's Basilica stands the famous Campanile di San Marco (St. Mark’s Tower). The original version of the bell tower is 98.6 meters high and traditionally the Venetians call it "Paron di casa" - the landlord. However, the tower we see today is no longer the original from the year 991because the Campanile collapsed completely in 1902. It took the ten following years to reconstruct the famous landmark with its old stones until it could finally be re-entered. Let's hope that the Wunderland’s St. Mark’s Tower will not be struck by the same fate and that our Wunderland engineers have done a much better job.