A winged lion and a flight of carved doves still look down from a facade that has been a cinema, a bookshop and, today, a Louis Vuitton store — the sculpture outlasting every business behind it.
At a glance
Tucked into the calle that runs from Campo San Moisè toward the Accademia bridge, this stone-faced building carries three survivors from its life as the Cinema Teatro San Marco: a reclining winged lion of St Mark and a tall vertical panel of doves in flight, both carved by sculptor Napoleone Martinuzzi, and a Fascist-era date panel reading “A. XVII” — the seventeenth year of the Fascist calendar, 1938–39. The cinema itself, first opened in 1908 and rebuilt in its present, more monumental form by 1939–40, closed and stood empty for years before its 2004 conversion into retail space; it now trades as a Louis Vuitton store, with Martinuzzi’s reliefs preserved on the exterior.
Key facts
- Sculptural reliefs: Napoleone Martinuzzi (1892–1977) — a reclining lion and a vertical panel of eleven doves in flight, symbols of theatre and cinema
- Original cinema: opened 1908; rebuilt in its present monumental form, completed 1939 and opened 1940
- On-site date: a stone panel carved “A. XVII” — year XVII of the Fascist-era calendar (28 October 1938 – 27 October 1939), confirming the completion year
- Later use: restructured in 2004 by the Benetton Group as a bookshop and events space
- Current use: a Louis Vuitton store, the exterior reliefs retained
- Location: off Calle Larga XXII Marzo, San Marco, Venice
- GPS: 45.43320, 12.33646 · Open in Google Maps
History
A cinema had stood on this site since 1908, but the building Venetians would come to know as the Cinema Teatro San Marco took its present monumental form only at the end of the 1930s, rebuilt as a more modern, more dignified venue — part of a broader push across the city’s theatres and cinemas to bring them up to the technical and architectural standard of the day. A stone panel on the facade carries the Fascist-era date “A. XVII”, placing the building’s completion within year seventeen of that calendar, late 1938 to late 1939; Conoscere Venezia records the wider project as running through to the cinema’s 1940 opening. Sculptor Napoleone Martinuzzi, already well known for his glass and stone work across Venice, carved the reliefs that still mark the exterior: a reclining winged lion, and a narrow vertical panel where eleven doves cross in flight, symbols chosen for the arts the building housed.
The cinema did not survive as a cinema. After a long period of closure, the Benetton Group restructured the space in 2004 into a bookshop and events venue; today the address is entirely private, occupied by a Louis Vuitton boutique. Through every change of use, Martinuzzi’s lion and doves — and the carved date beside them — have stayed on the facade, the one part of the building’s history still visible from the street.
Sources
- Conoscere Venezia, Cinema Teatro San Marco (1908/1940) — conoscerevenezia.it: the 1908 opening, the 1940 rebuilding, Martinuzzi’s lion and dove reliefs, the 2004 Benetton conversion and the current Louis Vuitton occupancy
- On-site relief, date panel and shopfront, verified from the contributed photographs: Martinuzzi’s carvings, the “A. XVII” Fascist-era date, and the current Louis Vuitton signage
- Coordinates cross-checked against OpenStreetMap Nominatim for the calle off Campo San Moisè
Photo gallery
Photographs contributed by a Cultural Heritage Online member.
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See this place and what’s around it →Record researched and written by Carla Szathvary for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.
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