St. Mark's, free admission for residents suspended. Venetians will pay the ticket

Venetians will also pay to enter St. Mark’s Basilica: residents, until now, could enjoyfree access (they paid only two euros for reservations if they wanted to skip the line), while now they will have to pay a ticket. The price is very low(three euros), but still it is more than zero, and above all it is an indication that even one of the most visited sites in Italy faces an emergency situation, as six months of closure have had a devastating impact on the monument’s coffers.

The 3-euro ticket for residents, in fact, was introduced precisely to cope with the emergency and, the top management of the fabbriceria assure, it is a temporary measure. This was stated, to Corriere della Sera, first prosecutor Carlo Alberto Tesserin: “It is a temporary measure, we are trying to open the basilica in its different aspects by framing each aspect in correspondence with the ministerial norms, we had to rush the steps. The basilica has been closed to visitors for six dry months, I think the Venetians are also aware of the enormous difficulty we are in and will understand why we are making this decision. Entrance is limited to 200 people, we need revenue like never before: we are asking for a three euro help, without making distinctions between tourists and non-tourists.”

This is not the first time it has been proposed to introduce a ticket for residents, and so far the measure had always been thwarted, but this time the situation is such that it cannot be done otherwise: in 2021 alone, repeated closures caused a 4 million hole in a budget that, in 2019, under the heading of revenue from receipts saw the sum of 12 million euros. St. Mark’s must undergo continuous maintenance, not least because MOSE does not save it from medium tides: the square is in fact the lowest point in the city, and even if the rest of the historic center remains dry, water often laps at St. Mark’s. “If we look at 2021, from January to a few weeks ago we have 4 million in lost revenue,” Tesserin says again. “Relating 2019 to 2020, we collected even less than 25 percent. The Basilica costs us almost a million euros per month, in 2020 we managed to close the budget with a small loss of 300 thousand euros, but only thanks to contributions and pre-pandemic months. The damage caused by high water has become of an incalculable size, there is no respite anymore.” He concludes, “We need the work to be done and completed by November, otherwise it will be dramatic.”

St. Mark's, free admission for residents suspended. Venetians will pay the ticket

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