It is not by accident that the chief buildings of Venice stand where they do, for this part of the Rialtine islands, called _il Morso_, offered a soil harder[81] and more tenacious than any other. In early ages the Piazza was a grass-grown field, called the Broglio or Garden, scarce a third of its present area, and a large elder tree flourished on the site of the Campanile. It was bounded on the W. by a rio which ran from N. to S. a few yards beyond the Campanile and discharged into the Grand Canal to the W. of the present Zecca (mint). On the W. bank of the rio, facing the basilica of St Mark, stood the old church of S. Giminiano. In 1176 Doge Ziani filled up the rio, razed the fortifications and extended and paved the Piazza, to its present boundary westward. The church of S. Giminiano was rebuilt at the W. end. It was again rebuilt by Sansovino in 1556 and finally demolished by Napoleon I. to extend the Royal Palace. Houses on the S. abutted on the Campanile. The Piazza was enclosed by stately mansions with columns and arcades on the first floor, “where one walked round as in a theatre.”[82] When Scamozzi built the Procuratie Nuove in 1584, the houses on the S. were demolished and the Piazza set back to its present line. If we would restore its aspect in the fulness of Venetian prosperity, we must imagine a scene brilliant with colour. The archivolts, capitals, friezes and sculptures generally of St Mark’s and the Ducal Palace were richly decorated with gold and vermilion and blue. The Porta della Carta glowed so with gold that it was known as the _Porta dorata_ (the gilded portal). The bronze horses were gilded; so was St Mark’s Lion and St Theodore in the Piazzetta. From Leopardi’s beautiful bronze sockets three tall masts upheld the standards symbolising dominion over Greece, Cyprus and Crete.