Giardini della Biennale (Venice) Giardini della Biennale (Venice) The Venice Giardini is an area of parkland in the historic city of Venice which hosts the Venice Biennale Art Festival, a major part of the city's cultural Biennale. The gardens were created by Napoleon Bonaparte who drained an area of marshland in order to create a public garden on the banks of the Bacino di San Marco which is a narrow stretch of water dividing the gardens from St. Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace. The gardens contain 30 permanent pavilions. Each pavilion is allocated to a particular nation and displays works of art by
Saint Isaac's Square granite pedestals; they were made famous by Pushkin in his last long poem, "The Bronze Horseman". Nearby is Quarenghi's Horse Guards' Riding Hall (1804–07), in part inspired by the Parthenon and flanked by the marble statues of the Dioscuri, by Paolo Triscornia. Opposite the cathedral is the Mariinsky Palace, built in 1829-1844 for Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna. Currently the palace houses the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly. In front of the palace is the 97-metre-wide Blue Bridge, which used to be the widest in Saint Petersburg. Spanning the Moika River, the bridge is usually perceived as the extension of the square,