In that context, therefore, it's neither very surprising nor out of the realm of possibility that one particular group of mercenaries saw a chance for a real gold mine to come their way-if not the Holy Grail, then a pretty good second choice!
Thus it was in 829, the story goes, that two merchants smuggled the body of St. Mark from its original burial place in Alexandria, Egypt, to Venice, upon which point the Doge promptly declared the church as the apostle's official burial place and appropriated him as the new patron saint. This in and of itself wasn't a problem; a town could, after all, have more than one patron saint-and no doubt, they reasoned, where better would God want to bestow such an honor than Italy?
However, declaring a saint's "official" burial place to be in one spot, when a substantial number of Egyptian citizens could staunchly disagree and even prove otherwise . . . now, there was a sticky political issue. The people of Venice were, after all, a godly sort who couldn't live a lie for too long . . . and fortunately, they didn't have to.
Where the tale sprung up, history doesn't tell us exactly. But spring up it did, a story entirely plausible to the pious people of the time, and one that honored Venice even more in the bargain. Seems in the fourth century-or so the holy men said-Mark was in fact in northern Italy, visiting the Venetian Lagoon, when he met an angel. The angel greeted him, "Peace to you, Mark, my Evangelist." Since Mark's honored position as an evangelist was thereby approved and officially recognized by God himself, it stood to reason that Venice had been preordained as well as his final resting place, designated so by the angel. Would anyone argue with God at that point? Not likely, especially since the Doge so clearly believed God would have it no other way. And so, Mark became the second official patron saint of Venice.
As for what happened to Theodore-no, the Venetians didn't offer him to Alexandria in a sort of godly "exchange program." What they did was erect two statues, one for Mark and one for Theodore, in the area adjacent to the church. This brought about a unique character to the whole piazza, having on one hand the Doge's residence, on the other the house of God, and in the middle . . . a house of justice. Indeed, prisons were located in the nether regions below the Doge's house, and the Bridge of Sighs was later so named because prisoners believed as they crossed that bridge to the dungeons, they might well never see the beauty of the lagoon and its islands again. But long before that, once Venice had its two patrons on hand to oversee citizens' conduct, the piazza soon became a center of not only man's justice but God's. Convicted criminals were executed between these two saints' images, and soon parents even began to use the words "your fate will be between the saints" to discipline unruly children (www.ertrav.com/pathways/html/sanmarco.asp)!
But did the Venetians themselves, even while...
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