User:TracyVitale/San Marco dei Veneziani

The church of San Marco dei Veneziani is a church in the historic center of Bari, located in vico San Marco.

There are no documents that clarify the origins of the church. According to Beatillo, the construction goes back to the years 1002-1003; it was meant to celebrate the liberation of Bari from the Saracens by the Doge of Venice Pietro Orseolo II. Actually this is controversial, according to some historians. More probably the building, of which a Byzantine substructure has recently been discovered, dating back to the 10th century, was used in an unspecified period by the colony of Venetians, resident in Bari for mainly commercial reasons.

The first documented mention goes back a parchment from 1187 : a bull by the archbishop Rainaldo addressed to Cattaro's bishop,where, among the signatories, appears a Maione, abbas sancti Marci (abbot of the church of San Marco).

Other references are found between the XIII and XV centuries

An epigraph going back to an unspecified period recalls a restoration or expansion of the church by a doctor from Bari named Giovanni, currently kept in the lapidary of the Diocesan Museum: Lapsa vetustate domus haec tibi, Marce beate/ Durat in his annis, studio renovata Ioannis,/ Ergo, Pater, cura sibi digna rependere iura,/ Et pro collatis medium coniunge Beatis.

From the visit of Archbishop Tommaso Ruffo (1648-86), it appears that at that time the church conducted normal liturgical activity, entrusted to the care of the archdeacon and the archpriest of the cathedral, who lived nearby.

The confraternity known as San Marco was annexed to the church, but in 1809 it moved to Sant'Agostino. The confraternity of S. Antonio da Padova then settled there and still looks after it today.

The facade of the church partially retains its Romanesque aspect, gabled, with a double pitched roof, closed by two high pilasters on the sides, which originally divided it into three naves.

The right aisle was destroyed, while the left aisle, on which a small portal opens, once surmounted by the epigraph of a Bari doctor who took care of the restoration of the church, is not visible as a building leaning against it several floors, later purchased in part by the confraternity