The strange pulpit, which with part of the rood screen seen in the illustration stands to the north of the steps leading into the presbytery, is arranged in a double tier, and is entered by a double winding stair from the vestibule of the Capella de S. Pietro. Its curious domed sounding-board is very reminiscent of the East. Mention has already been made of the chapels of the Miraculous Virgin and S. Leonard. That dedicated to S. Peter is behind this pulpit on the north side of the presbytery. It has a door leading out into the piazza. The corresponding chapel to the south is dedicated to S. Clement. At the end of the north transept is another to S. Isidore--a dark, solemn little place. The sacristy is beyond the chapel of S. Peter at the back of the presbytery. It is a fine apartment with mosaics from designs by Titian and his pupils, which may be studied as a good example of Renaissance decoration in _tesseræ_. Sansovino, who executed the beautiful door, is said to have had it in hand for twenty years.
The baptistery is entered from the south aisle, and with the adjoining Cappella Zeno is one of the most interesting parts of S. Mark's. In the former is the monument and sarcophagus of Doge Andrea Dandolo, who died in 1354. It is a grand specimen of the sculpture of the age. The recumbent figure of the Doge, who was the last to be buried in S. Mark's, is very serene in its realisation of the Last Sleep. All the mosaics the chamber contains were given and paid for by Andrea. Most of them naturally relate to the Holy Rite. The font is very ancient, and has a fine bronze cover designed by Sansovino and surmounted by a statuette of S. John the Baptist. A very beautiful low relief of four crossed swords which compose a cross, with birds beneath, is let into one of the walls. On the vaulted roof of the Cappella Zeno, the life of the Evangelist, whose body at first rested here, is well depicted in a series of mosaics. The centre of the chapel is occupied by the tomb of Cardinal Zeno, who left the bulk of his immense fortune to S. Mark's. The altar stands under a bronze canopy covering figures of Our Lady (who wears a gilded shoe), S. Peter, and S. John the Baptist. The legend runs that the Virgin gave her bronze shoe once to a poor votary and it was immediately turned into gold. From this incident the chapel, which became the Cardinal's Mausoleum, is also known as that of the Madonna della Scarpa.