Lying between the Doge's Palace and the Marciana Library, this extension of Piazza San Marco opens out onto the lagoon and offers superb views of San Giorgio Maggiore church, a masterpiece by Palladio. It is adorned by a pair of columns atop which stand statues of St Theodore and the lion of St Mark. These granite columns were brought from the East in 1172 and act as a kind of symbolic gate towards the Adriatic.