Read Online The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories by Edward Hollis - Free Book Online
Authors: Edward Hollis
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a little frightened of their art collection. It represented the civilization that had mothered them; and over time, as that civilization disappeared from view, they came to regard their statues as the dwellings of demons, possessed of magical powers. The hoof of the bronze horse that supported the hero Bellerophon concealed, they said, the image of the future destroyer of Constantinople, while the colossal statue of Justinian hid a hoard of priceless jewels that would only be discovered on the day the city fell. There was a bronze snake whose magical power, they said, had cast out all the serpents of Constantinople, and a nymph atop a pyramid who answered to the call of the winds. These things were wonders; but they were also evidence that, in their fallen state, the Romans of Constantinople could no longer conjure the magic of their forefathers.
F OUR HUNDRED AND fifty years after the iconoclasm of Theodosius, when Constantinople was a great and thriving city, Venice was as yet merely a marsh inhabited by humble fishermen. Humble they might have been, but every evening, as they watched the sun set over the world’s flat edge, they dimly remembered that once upon a time they too had been Romans, and nobles at that. The Venetianshad escaped to this lagoon when Huns had attacked their ancient city of Aquileia. It is said that they gathered the carved stones of their temples and rowed out with them into the water to evade barbarian capture. (Take a boat today to the quiet island of Torcello, and you can still see these carvings, built into crumbling cathedrals of a much later date.) Hidden amid the shallows and the reeds, they remained inviolate, beyond the reach of siege engines, archers, and cavalry. Floating on the surface of the waters, suspended between the horizons of the Orient and Occident, the Venetians answered to no one. Their dwellings were made of the clay they dug up from their muddy islets and baked into bricks; when these buildings fell into ruin, they dissolved back into the slime from which they had come and disappeared.
Every morning, as they watched sun rise over the sea in the east, the Venetians dreamed of a destiny consonant with the greatness of their lost heritage. And so the people of Venice decided to steal themselves a past, in order to conjure themselves a future. They decided first of all to steal a patron saint, who would give them a pedigree, protect them from evil, and bring good fortune upon their enterprises; and they sent their boatmen out over the waters to find one.
At that time Alexandria was in the sway of the Fatimid caliphate; but two merchants of Venice, by the names of Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, went to the city and found an old church dedicated to Saint Mark the Evangelist. Saint Mark had been martyred in Alexandria, and his remains had been kept in this church ever since. The two merchants spoke with the guardians of the saint. They were in danger, these priests said, for the governor of Alexandria intended to demolish their church and send its marbles and columns to the caliph’s new palace in Babylon. The two merchants of Venice offered to conceal the body of the saint until the peril had passed, and the holy fathers agreed with gratitude.
One night, under the cover of darkness, the priests let them into the church. Torcello and Malamocco took the body of Saint Mark and substituted it with the body of another, less exalted martyr, Saint Claudia—although legend does not relate how her body had been acquired. They put the relics of the more venerable saint into a wicker basket, and they covered them with joints of pork, so that the Muslimsoldiers who guarded the city would not investigate what was apparently a container of defiled meat.
But the merchants had no intention of returning the body of Saint Mark once the danger had passed. Instead they made their way to the docks and loaded the wicker basket with its sacred contents onto their galley. As they
F OUR HUNDRED AND fifty years after the iconoclasm of Theodosius, when Constantinople was a great and thriving city, Venice was as yet merely a marsh inhabited by humble fishermen. Humble they might have been, but every evening, as they watched the sun set over the world’s flat edge, they dimly remembered that once upon a time they too had been Romans, and nobles at that. The Venetianshad escaped to this lagoon when Huns had attacked their ancient city of Aquileia. It is said that they gathered the carved stones of their temples and rowed out with them into the water to evade barbarian capture. (Take a boat today to the quiet island of Torcello, and you can still see these carvings, built into crumbling cathedrals of a much later date.) Hidden amid the shallows and the reeds, they remained inviolate, beyond the reach of siege engines, archers, and cavalry. Floating on the surface of the waters, suspended between the horizons of the Orient and Occident, the Venetians answered to no one. Their dwellings were made of the clay they dug up from their muddy islets and baked into bricks; when these buildings fell into ruin, they dissolved back into the slime from which they had come and disappeared.
Every morning, as they watched sun rise over the sea in the east, the Venetians dreamed of a destiny consonant with the greatness of their lost heritage. And so the people of Venice decided to steal themselves a past, in order to conjure themselves a future. They decided first of all to steal a patron saint, who would give them a pedigree, protect them from evil, and bring good fortune upon their enterprises; and they sent their boatmen out over the waters to find one.
At that time Alexandria was in the sway of the Fatimid caliphate; but two merchants of Venice, by the names of Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, went to the city and found an old church dedicated to Saint Mark the Evangelist. Saint Mark had been martyred in Alexandria, and his remains had been kept in this church ever since. The two merchants spoke with the guardians of the saint. They were in danger, these priests said, for the governor of Alexandria intended to demolish their church and send its marbles and columns to the caliph’s new palace in Babylon. The two merchants of Venice offered to conceal the body of the saint until the peril had passed, and the holy fathers agreed with gratitude.
One night, under the cover of darkness, the priests let them into the church. Torcello and Malamocco took the body of Saint Mark and substituted it with the body of another, less exalted martyr, Saint Claudia—although legend does not relate how her body had been acquired. They put the relics of the more venerable saint into a wicker basket, and they covered them with joints of pork, so that the Muslimsoldiers who guarded the city would not investigate what was apparently a container of defiled meat.
But the merchants had no intention of returning the body of Saint Mark once the danger had passed. Instead they made their way to the docks and loaded the wicker basket with its sacred contents onto their galley. As they
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