The history of St Mark’s Basilica

The photographs on this page and the rest of the site are credited in the gallery.

Three churches

The first church of San Marco was built to house a relic. In 829 the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist was brought to Venice from Alexandria, under Doge Giustiniano Partecipazio, who decided to build a church for it. (The Basilica’s page on Saint Mark dates the arrival to 31 January 828; its chronology gives 829.) The Basilica’s own pages describe the first church in two ways, and we give both: its chronology has it consecrated in 832 under Doge Giovanni Partecipazio, while its page on the Doges credits Giustiniano Partecipazio with having it built, and dates that to 829–836.

That church burned in 976, in the revolt that killed Doge Pietro Candiano IV, when the fire set to the Doge’s Palace spread to it. It was rebuilt under Doge Orseolo I, called the Saint.

The church you visit is the third. Doge Domenico Contarini had it designed on the model of the Apostoleion, Constantinople’s Church of the Holy Apostles, and rebuilding began in 1063. His successor, Domenico Selvo, was crowned in a church still nondum perfecta, not yet finished, and the first mosaics date from his reign. Doge Vitale Falier consecrated it in 1094 and laid Saint Mark’s body in the crypt.

The Republic’s chapel

For as long as the Republic lasted, St Mark’s belonged to the Doge, not to a bishop. For about a thousand years it served as the Doges’ chapel. Domenico Selvo was crowned in it, several Doges are buried in its atrium and Baptistery, and one after another they added to it: the Pala d’Oro ordered from Byzantium by Ordelaffo Falier, enlarged by Pietro Ziani with spoils of Constantinople and given its final arrangement by Andrea Dandolo; the Mascoli chapel of Francesco Foscari; Sansovino’s presbytery for Andrea Gritti.

The Republic fell in 1797. Ten years later, in 1807, the Basilica became the seat of the Patriarch of Venice, moving the cathedral from San Pietro di Castello.

Church of State

The Doge did not only own the church; he ran it. He appointed its head, the Primicerio, who was given the authority of a bishop, and the church was entrusted to the Procurators of Saint Mark. Every newly elected Doge was presented to the people and proclaimed inside the Basilica, from the right-hand pulpit reserved for him, before going out into the Piazza.

It was the stage for the Republic’s great moments. Soldiers were blessed there before leaving for war, and flags taken from the enemy were presented there. In 1177 the Basilica saw the Peace of Venice between Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the highest authorities of Europe, with Doge Sebastiano Ziani; their names are carved in the marble floor of the atrium. In 1201 Doge Enrico Dandolo gathered the crusaders there before they sailed. In 1377, with the Genoese pressing on the city, the people carried Vettor Pisani into St Mark’s so that the Doge would give him command of the defence. And during the plagues the Senate made its vows there: in 1576 to build the Redentore, in 1630 to build the Salute.

Merchants and sailors, too, brought it precious gifts from their voyages, to keep great and rich the monument that stood for the greatness of Venice.

Byzantium, and the Fourth Crusade

In art, as in everything else, the Basilica says, Venice was born Byzantine and stayed so for centuries. Between the ninth and the fourteenth century its trade and its politics faced east, towards Constantinople, and it called artists from there to make works and mosaics in the Byzantine manner. From the twelfth century the Arab and Muslim world became a second source of forms.

The Fourth Crusade is sometimes called the crusade of the Venetians. Launched by Pope Innocent III against the Sultan of Egypt, it was turned by Venice into a campaign of its own. Venice had not forgotten 1171, when Emperor Manuel had ten thousand Venetians arrested and killed in Constantinople. The crusaders gathered in Venice in 1202; in April 1203, despite the Pope’s excommunications, they took Constantinople to restore the young Alexios, who was killed in an uprising; in 1204 they took it again for themselves. On the proposal of the old Doge Enrico Dandolo the empire was divided among the victors and a Latin Empire founded, of which Venice received “a quarter and a half”. The spoils — gold, marble, works of art, the four horses — are still in the Basilica, its Treasury and its Museum.

After the Republic

On 12 May 1797 the Serenissima fell to Napoleon’s troops. The Treasury was plundered to pay the French, the horses were taken to Paris, and in 1807, by Napoleon’s wish, the cathedral was moved from San Pietro di Castello to St Mark’s, which ceased to be the Doge’s chapel and became the city’s cathedral.

The Bishop of Venice holds the title of Patriarch, because the see is held to be of apostolic foundation: by very ancient tradition Saint Mark, disciple and interpreter of Peter, evangelised the Veneto before Venice existed. In the twentieth century three Patriarchs of Venice were elected Pope: Giuseppe Sarto, Pius X; Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, John XXIII; and Albino Luciani, John Paul I.