Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice

One of Italy's oldest libraries on St Mark's Square – a Sansovino masterpiece with irreplaceable manuscripts

The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana – the National Library of St Mark – is one of the oldest public libraries in Italy and one of the world's most important collections of Greek, Latin and Oriental manuscripts. It traces its origins to 1468, when Cardinal Bessarion bequeathed his extensive manuscript collection to the city of Venice. The building on the southern edge of St Mark's Square was designed by Jacopo Sansovino and is considered a masterpiece of Venetian Renaissance architecture. Today the Marciana is the only institution that has survived from the age of the Venetian Republic.