Columns of San Marco and San Todaro, Venice

The Colonna di San Teodoro is the tall stone column carrying Saint Theodore, the warrior saint shown standing on a dragon. It forms part of the monumental water entrance to the Piazzetta, alongside its companion column bearing Saint Mark’s winged lion. Look at the reliefs carved into the base: they show the trades once practiced in this square, preserving a glimpse of its busy commercial life before its later monumental redesign.

The figure itself has an unusual layered history. Its torso comes from a Roman imperial statue, while the head, halo, arms, and legs are medieval additions; the original is now inside the Doge’s Palace. The lion on the companion column is an ancient Greek or Syrian bronze, probably adapted from a chimera by adding wings.

The columns’ arrival is wrapped in competing accounts. Local tradition credits Nicolò Barattieri with raising them under Doge Sebastiano Ziani, using wet ropes that tightened as they dried and allowed wooden wedges to be inserted beneath the shafts. Modern study places their erection in the thirteenth century, after Venice seized Constantinople in 1204.

Tradition also says a third column vanished into the lagoon during landing. The space between these columns later became a site of public executions, and a Venetian saying links the condemned with the clock tower they saw at the end.