A drawing of the interior of San Marco in Venice. Many figures are depicted inside the church underneath the crossing of one of the church's domes. On the right two pulpits are visible on either side of the choir screen. Both pulpits are full of people.

The drawing is an accurate view from a point along the west side of the south transept, looking towards the north transept. Despite the possible confusion caused by Canaletto’s dense cross-hatching, the simple geometrical spaces of the basilica are clearly legible. Canaletto loosely indicated the Apostles in the twelfth-century mosaic of the Ascension in the central dome, and one of the enthroned Evangelists in the pendentive immediately below. At lower centre and right are the two polygonal pulpits, with the great marble rood screen surmounted by statues running between them at the entrance to the sanctuary. A strong horizontal light from the main doors of the basilica illuminates the worshippers at the crossing and the little of the nave that can be seen at the left of the drawing.

An unusually small painting in the Royal Collection (RCIN 400567), dating from a few years earlier, corresponds with the composition of the drawing, but in the painting the pulpits are conspicuously draped, indicating a specific, if unidentified, ceremony. The crowd here seems to be spilling up the steps in front of the rood screen, and the attention of the congregation is focussed on the south pulpit. The drawing may therefore depict the traditional appearance of the Doge to the nobility of Venice from that pulpit following his coronation in the sanctuary of the basilica. Given the approximate date of the drawing based on its style, it might be intended to show the scene after the coronation of Doge Alvise Pisani in 1735. However no single figure is clearly distinguishable in the pulpit and the figures are too schematically drawn to be sure of this.

Catalogue entry adapted from Canaletto in Venice, London, 2005