Sandbag structures built to protect Venetian artworks during the First World War

The facade of San Marco was boarded up & the bronze horses taken down

I particularly like the hut that was built round Verrocchio’s equine statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Campo San Giovanni e Paolo

The worst loss during the war was the Tiepolo ceiling at Santa Maria degli Scalzi

I hadn’t known though that San Pietro di Castello was bombed. Here is an extraordinary photograph of firefighters attempting to extinguish a fire in the cupola on the 10th August 1916.

More sandbag structures

Venice wasn’t bombed during World War 2 but many drowned after falling in canals during blackout