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 Page A
Authors: Edward Hollis
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cast off, it is said, a sweet smell started to emanate from the shrine of Saint Mark. The people of Alexandria ran to the shrine to see—or smell—what was going on; but they were fooled by the bones of Saint Claudia. The priests’ lips were sealed, and everyone went back to their homes, while the Venetians slipped away to sea. Thus did Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello steal the body of Saint Mark from under the noses of the Alexandrians.
A modest church was built in Venice to house the remains of the saint, the stolen patron of a city that had been stolen from the sea; but when this first church burned down in 976, the Venetians decided to replace it with something altogether more ambitious, and once again they looked east for inspiration. The new basilica of San Marco was built in imitation of the church of the Holy Apostles, which stood next to the Hippodrome in Constantinople. This church was known as the Heröon, because it had been built by Constantine, the founding hero of the city.
The Heröon that the Venetians made for their stolen founder followed precisely the form of the original. It was fashioned in the form of a Greek cross surmounted by five graceful domes. The domes were supported on heavy brick arches and piers that were themselves pierced by smaller domes and arches, as if the church were a series of microcosms nestled inside one another at ever decreasing scales. It was surrounded by arcades that opened onto the muddy space outside, facing the castle of the doge.
This church took some fifty years to build, and when it was finished the doge and the patriarch and the people marveled at the lofty vaults and fine pavements. They sensed, though, that there was something missing. Then they realized that they had forgotten where they had stored the body of Saint Mark.
The people wailed out loud at their loss, and they demanded a miracle from their forgetful masters. The doge Vitale Falier and the patriarch Domenico Contarini gathered them all in the new basilica,and they began to pray. For hours their chant and their incense rose into the domes, and nothing happened. Then, after a while, a sweet smell began to pervade the church. Suddenly one of the piers to the right of the altar began to shake, and the masonry began to buckle. With a crash and a roar an arm appeared, then a shoulder, a torso, and a head; and then the whole body of Saint Mark fell lifeless onto the pavement of the sanctuary. The doge Falier placed this body in a marble sarcophagus in the crypt, and the Heröon of the Venetians received its patron saint.
The basilica of San Marco was now complete, but it was a bare sort of building, lacking in the ornaments that were surely proper to the shrine of the patron saint of a great republic. The Venetians knew what they had to do: just as they had sailed east and had stolen the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria, just as they had looked east and copied the design of his shrine from Constantinople, so they would sail east again to find the gold and the marble, the icons and the relics and the ornaments that would adorn their church.
Now at this time there lived in Venice a blind man by the name of Enrico Dandolo. Once upon a time, Dandolo had been a merchant in Constantinople, but he had caused so much trouble there that he had been expelled from the city. Dandolo returned to Venice, having been blinded, he claimed, by the Byzantine Imperial Guard; and he nursed hatred and bitterness in his heart against Constantinople. From year to year Dandolo plotted how he might avenge himself on the city that had cast him out. His cunning and his determination raised him through the ranks of the state until he became the doge himself. Still he waited, and then one day an opportunity presented itself.
In 1201, the pope had declared a crusade to reclaim Jerusalem for the faith. The Venetians, living as they did on the water, were unable to contribute knights or infantry, but they did offer to
A modest church was built in Venice to house the remains of the saint, the stolen patron of a city that had been stolen from the sea; but when this first church burned down in 976, the Venetians decided to replace it with something altogether more ambitious, and once again they looked east for inspiration. The new basilica of San Marco was built in imitation of the church of the Holy Apostles, which stood next to the Hippodrome in Constantinople. This church was known as the Heröon, because it had been built by Constantine, the founding hero of the city.
The Heröon that the Venetians made for their stolen founder followed precisely the form of the original. It was fashioned in the form of a Greek cross surmounted by five graceful domes. The domes were supported on heavy brick arches and piers that were themselves pierced by smaller domes and arches, as if the church were a series of microcosms nestled inside one another at ever decreasing scales. It was surrounded by arcades that opened onto the muddy space outside, facing the castle of the doge.
This church took some fifty years to build, and when it was finished the doge and the patriarch and the people marveled at the lofty vaults and fine pavements. They sensed, though, that there was something missing. Then they realized that they had forgotten where they had stored the body of Saint Mark.
The people wailed out loud at their loss, and they demanded a miracle from their forgetful masters. The doge Vitale Falier and the patriarch Domenico Contarini gathered them all in the new basilica,and they began to pray. For hours their chant and their incense rose into the domes, and nothing happened. Then, after a while, a sweet smell began to pervade the church. Suddenly one of the piers to the right of the altar began to shake, and the masonry began to buckle. With a crash and a roar an arm appeared, then a shoulder, a torso, and a head; and then the whole body of Saint Mark fell lifeless onto the pavement of the sanctuary. The doge Falier placed this body in a marble sarcophagus in the crypt, and the Heröon of the Venetians received its patron saint.
The basilica of San Marco was now complete, but it was a bare sort of building, lacking in the ornaments that were surely proper to the shrine of the patron saint of a great republic. The Venetians knew what they had to do: just as they had sailed east and had stolen the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria, just as they had looked east and copied the design of his shrine from Constantinople, so they would sail east again to find the gold and the marble, the icons and the relics and the ornaments that would adorn their church.
Now at this time there lived in Venice a blind man by the name of Enrico Dandolo. Once upon a time, Dandolo had been a merchant in Constantinople, but he had caused so much trouble there that he had been expelled from the city. Dandolo returned to Venice, having been blinded, he claimed, by the Byzantine Imperial Guard; and he nursed hatred and bitterness in his heart against Constantinople. From year to year Dandolo plotted how he might avenge himself on the city that had cast him out. His cunning and his determination raised him through the ranks of the state until he became the doge himself. Still he waited, and then one day an opportunity presented itself.
In 1201, the pope had declared a crusade to reclaim Jerusalem for the faith. The Venetians, living as they did on the water, were unable to contribute knights or infantry, but they did offer to
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