Virtual Refectory: All that glisters, Part I

The history of the Basilica di San Marco, Venice starts here…

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,

With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned—

Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only—this immense

And glorious Work of fine intelligence!

—William Wordsworth, Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge

Basilica di San Marco. Photo: Tuscany Now

“Kanzir, kanzir!” (pig, pig) cried the Islamic excisemen, recoiling in disgust as they peered into the cargo to see only heaped girthy slabs of pork. Trusting the freight was mere carne proibiti—which the Muslim officials at the Arab-controlled port of Alexandria would never approach, nor profane[i]—they hastily waved the holy load through without inspection, ready for boarding the ship to Venice. Intrepid Venetian merchants Tribunus da Malamocco and Rusticus da Torcello[1] had just successfully stolen the body of the Apostle, St Mark the Evangelist.[ii]