History of St. Mark's Basilica Venice

The translatio, in which two Venetian merchants removed Saint Mark's body from Alexandria, Egypt, and brought it to Venice in 828/829, is recounted in several medieval chronicles. According to the Chronicon Venetum, before the construction of the Doge's Palace on the site of the castrum, the relics of Saint Mark were kept in a corner tower of the castrum. Doge Giustiniano Participazio, who reigned in 827–828, left instructions in his will for his widow and his younger brother and successor Giovanni to build a cathedral to Saint Mark to keep the remains. The new church as per the history of St Mark's Basilica was to be built, according to Giustiniano, in the area between the Church of Saint Theodore and the castrum, which was to the north. The relocation of Saint Mark's remains to the new church may have occurred as early as 836, during Giustinian's lifetime.

In 976, during the popular rebellion against Doge Pietro IV Candiano, who was in office from 959 to 976, the fire that angry masses had lit to remove the Doge from the castrum spread to the next church, the Participazio, causing extensive damage. Despite the building's survival, it was damaged to the degree where Candiano's successor, Pietro I Orseolo, in office 976-978, had to be elected in the San Pietro di Castello cathedral. Two years later, and at the family's personal expense, the church had been restored, suggesting that the damage had been little to begin with. The walls and supports were probably still in good shape, but the wooden parts had been destroyed.

It was during the middle of the eleventh century that several Italian cities, anxious to flaunt their burgeoning commercial wealth and authority, began building or restoring their cathedrals on a magnificent scale. The history of St Mark's Basilica has it that it was also extensively renovated and enlarged under the reign of Doge Domenico I Contarini (1043-1071), making the church look like a completely different structure. By absorbing the southern lateral nave of Saint Theodore's Church, the northern transept was prolonged. The crypt was also increased to the east, and the high altar was relocated from under the central dome to the elevated chancel, which was maintained by a structure of columns and vaults in the underneath crypt.

The original design for the Contarini church called for a very serious brick edifice. Only the arcade columns, gallery balustrades and parapets, and lattice altar screens were decorated on the inside. The history of St Mark's Basilica states that walls were embellished with niches, a few cornices, and molded arches that were interspersed with engaged brickwork columns. The western facade has a similar pattern of arches and projecting pillars to medieval Byzantine churches built in the 10 and eleventh centuries. Windows were cut into the walls at bigger blind angles, and the pillars in between were decorated with niches and round patere constructed of precious marbles and stones and framed in decorative molding. Corbel tables and friezes were among the other ornamental elements that followed Romanesque fashion, demonstrating the workers' skilled taste.

According to the history of St Mark's Basilica, there were originally more windows in the church than the sixteen in each of the five domes, with three or seven in the apse and perhaps eight in each of the lunettes. However, many of these windows were closed up in order to provide more room for the mosaic artwork. As built, the Contarini church's narthex was only accessible from the west. The northernmost niche is all that's left of the original Byzantine church's lateral extension beyond the façade. The original brick domes of Byzantine churches were covered with bigger outer shells in the thirteenth century's first half, and these shells supported bulbous lights ornamented with crosses.