Venice, high water encroaches on St. Mark's Basilica. Serious damage is feared

The record high water that affected Venice between yesterday and this morning (at its peak the tide reached 187 cm) may have caused serious damage to St. Mark’s Basilica. In fact, water invaded the building, and at the peak of the tide 110 cm of water was measured inside the basilica. The entire crypt was submerged.

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage had already sent its inspectors to Venice yesterday to verify the situation. “We are awaiting the results of the inspection by the ministry inspectors, which will take place as soon as the current high water phenomenon is over,” said Minister Dario Franceschini, “but we are ready to fund what was requested last year by the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Municipality of Venice and Laguna for the protection of St. Mark’s Basilica.”

After tonight’s spike, MiBACT activated the crisis unit to verify and secure cultural heritage that may have been damaged by the exceptional high tide that is affecting Venice. In addition, stresses Secretary General Salvo Nastasi, “since yesterday the ministry has been following the evolution of the situation step by step.”

For St. Mark’s Basilica, this is just the second time in two years that flooding of this magnitude has occurred: in 2018 another flood had damaged the mosaic floors and marble mosaics of the floor of the narthex: last year, 90 centimeters of water had flooded the temple. And even then it had been a disaster: the First Procurator of St. Mark’s, Carlo Alberto Tesserin, had declared that in a single day, due to the effect of the tide, the Basilica had looked as if it had aged twenty years. The damage had made it necessary to replace some of the marble.

St. Mark’s Procuratoria let it be known that events like tonight’s have happened only six times in 1,200 years. And two of them dated 2018 and 2019. An extremely alarming figure. Also because, according to the statements of Prosecutor Pierpaolo Campostrini, against such phenomena the basilica has no defense systems, except partial and in some areas of the basilica, but still insufficient in case of exceptional events.

Venice, high water encroaches on St. Mark's Basilica. Serious damage is feared

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