page_title: Biblioteca Marciana
section_title: Vestibule
hierarchical_section_title: Biblioteca Marciana / Building / Interiors / Vestibule
context_page_description: The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and holds one the world's most significant collections of classical texts. It is named after St. Mark, the patron saint of the city.
  The library was founded in 1468, when the humanist scholar Cardinal Bessarion, bishop of Tusculum and titular Latin patriarch of Constantinople, donated his collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic of Venice, with the stipulation that a library of public utility be established. The collection was the result of Bessarion's concerted effort to locate rare manuscripts throughout Greece and Italy and then acquire or copy them as a means of preserving the writings of the classical Greek authors and the literature of Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. His choice of Venice was primarily due to the city's large community of Greek refugees and its historical ties to the Byzantine Empire.
context_section_description: The vestibule was conceived as a lecture hall for the public school of Saint Mark. Founded in 1446 to train civil servants for the Ducal Chancery, it evolved into a humanistic school principally for the sons of the nobles and citizens. The initial curriculum, focusing on grammar and rhetoric, was expanded in 1460 with the creation of a second lectureship for poetry, oratory, and history. Among the Italian humanists who taught there were George of Trebizond, Giorgio Valla, Marcantonio Sabellico, Raphael Regius, and Marco Musuro. The vestibule additionally hosted the meetings of the Accademia veneziana from 1560 until the academy's dissolution for bankruptcy the following year. 
  The room was originally lined with wooden benches, interrupted by a lectern that was located under the central window of the western wall. But beginning in 1591, it was transformed into the public Statuary Hall by Vincenzo Scamozzi in order to display the collection of ancient sculpture that Giovanni Grimani had donated to the Venetian Republic in 1587. Of the original decoration, only the ceiling remains with the illusionistic three-dimensional decoration by Cristoforo and Stefano De Rosa of Brescia (1559). Titian's octagonal painting in the centre (c.1560) has most often been identified as a personification of Wisdom or History. Other suggestions include Poetry, Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Love of Letters.
caption: Tintoretto, Diogenes
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 700D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2016:12:18 13:15:33", "Image Artist": "Jarrod", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2336", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "5348", "Image XPAuthor": "Jarrod", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5476", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4986", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2000", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "2000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:07:20 16:42:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:07:20 16:42:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "22", "EXIF SubSecTime": "08", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "02", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "02", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1484", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2692", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5222", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "576000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "768000/199", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "148032014662", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[18, 135, 0, 0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "000007ec3f", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4070"}