+FOREIGN MONUMENTS.+ The influence of Byzantine art was wide-spread, both in Europe and Asia. The leading city of civilization through the Dark Ages, Constantinople influenced Italy through her political and commercial relations with Ravenna, Genoa, and Venice. The church of +St. Mark+ in the latter city was one result of this influence (Figs. 78, 79). Begun in 1063 to replace an earlier church destroyed by fire, it received through several centuries additions not always Byzantine in character. Yet it was mainly the work of Byzantine builders, who copied most probably the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, built by Justinian. The picturesque but wholly unstructural use of columns in the entrance porches, the upper parts of the façade, the wooden cupolas over the five domes, and the pointed arches in the narthex, are deviations from Byzantine traditions dating in part from the later Middle Ages Nothing could well be conceived more irrational, from a structural point of view, than the accumulation of columns in the entrance-arches; but the total effect is so picturesque and so rich in color, that its architectural defects are easily overlooked. The external veneering of white and colored marble occurs rarely in the East, but became a favorite practice in Venice, where it continued in use for five hundred years. The interior of St. Mark’s, in some respects better preserved than that of Hagia Sophia, is especially fine in color, though not equal in scale and grandeur to the latter church. With its five domes it has less unity of effect than Hagia Sophia, but more of the charm of picturesqueness, and its less brilliant and simpler lighting enhances the impressiveness of its more modest dimensions. In Russia and Greece the Byzantine style has continued to be the official style of the Greek Church. The Russian monuments are for the most part of a somewhat fantastic aspect, the Muscovite taste having introduced many innovations in the form of bulbous domes and other eccentric details. In Greece there are few large churches, and some of the most interesting, like the Cathedral at Athens, are almost toy-like in their diminutiveness. On +Mt. Athos+ (Hagion Oros) is an ancient monastery which still retains its Byzantine character and traditions. In Armenia (as at Ani, Etchmiadzin, etc.) are also interesting examples of late Armeno-Byzantine architecture, showing applications to exterior carved detail of elaborate interlaced ornament looking like a re-echo of Celtic MSS. illumination, itself, no doubt, originating in Byzantine traditions. But the greatest and most prolific offspring of Byzantine architecture appeared after the fall of Constantinople (1453) in the new mosque-architecture of the victorious Turks.