St. Mark was a native of the North Africa country of Libya.
He was born of Jewish parents, in the city of Cyrene in Pentapolis, The western part of Libya, west of the border of Egypt.
(Now Libya or Tunisia according to other sources).
Most of his adult life was spent in Alexandria, Egypt, the second largest city in the ancient world.
Much of what we know about St. Mark, the author of the Second Gospel, comes largely from the New Testament and early Christian traditions.
His original name was John and his surname was Mark.
Mark the Evangelist is believed to be the ‘John Mark’ referred to in the Acts of the Apostles, the history of the early Church found in the Canon of the New Testament.
Mark was an Evangelist—one of the four men who wrote the Gospels found in the New Testament.
Mark concentrates one half of his short account to just one week of Jesus’ life: from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection. “The storyline of Mark begins on the banks of the River Jordan in the wilderness, moves into Galilee then across the Jordan to Jericho and then up to Jerusalem, where Jesus’ identity is fully revealed as Messiah, Suffering Servant and Eucharistic Lord.”
Mark’s Gospel was written first, and it is the shortest description of Jesus’ life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.
He wrote his Gospel to help people know that Jesus was the Son of God who suffered and died to save us from sin and death.
Mark shows Jesus in a very natural and human light.
His gospel tells of Jesus being angry (3:5) and sympathetic (5:36, 6:34.)
Mark also tells us that Jesus admits to things He doesn’t know, such as the appointed time for the end of the world (13:32.)
Mark’s writings helped both Matthew and Luke to write their Gospels.
– St. Mark the Evangelist
He wrote the Gospel in Greek for the Gentile converts to Christianity, but Mark’s Gospel is a lasting treasure for all believers.
Mark’s Gospel emphasizes the importance of learning and applying spiritual lessons.
When we read Mark’s Gospel, we learn that to be a follower of Jesus, we, too, must be willing to make sacrifices, to “take up our cross and follow” (Mark 8:34) Jesus as he asks us to do.
A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching about what distinguishes the Gospel that Mark wrote:
“This rich and varied message clusters about two major foci: Jesus as king and his disciples as subjects in the kingdom of God.
Jesus not only announces the kingdom’s coming but also, by his authoritative words and deeds, incarnates its hidden presence.
Disciples are those to whom the secret of the kingdom is given; they are those who receive it, enter it, and share Jesus’ mission of announcing it.
Christology and discipleship are two basic concerns in the proclamation of the kingdom of God in Mark.”
According to tradition, in AD 49, about 19 years after the Ascension of Jesus, Mark travelled to Alexandria, and founded the Church of Alexandria (A city near Memphis, Cairo now ).
Today, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and the Coptic Catholic Church claim to be successors to this original community.
Aspects of the Coptic liturgy can be traced back to Mark himself.
He became the first bishop of Alexandria and he is honored as the founder of Christianity in Africa.
He was the son of Mary of Jerusalem (Acts 12:12) whose home became a meeting place for the apostles.
“And when he {peter} came to himself ….., he {Peter} came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many gathered together praying” (acts 12:11-12)
St. Mark’s parents, Aristopolos his father and Mary his mother, migrated to Palestine shortly after the birth of St. Mark because of the Berber attacks on their town and property.
They settled in Cana of Galilee not far form Jerusalem.
A few years later St. Mark’s father died and Peter Simon { St. Peter}, who was married to a relative of St. Mark’s father took care of St. Mark and considered him a son:
“The Church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you and so does Marcus {Mark} my son”; (1 Peter 5:13).
Peter Simon saw to it that St. Mark got a good education. St. Mark studied law and the classics.
He is also the cousin of St. Barnabas (Colossians 4:10), a Levite and a Cypriot.
Hippolytus of Rome in On the Seventy Apostles distinguishes Mark the Evangelist (2 Tim 4:11), John Mark (Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37), and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10; Phlm 1:24).
After Jesus’s crucifixion the apostle Peter was arrested and once released he escaped to Rome where he reunited with Mark.
According to Eusebius of Caesarea (Eccl. Hist. 2.9.1–4), Herod Agrippa I, in his first year of reign over the whole of Judea (AD 41), killed James, son of Zebedee and arrested Peter, planning to kill him after the Passover.
Peter was saved miraculously by angels, and escaped out of the realm of Herod (Acts 12:1–19).
Mark then joined St. Paul and St. Barnabas on their first missionary journey to Antioch in 44 A.D.
When the group reached Cyprus, Christian tradition holds that Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem, possibly because he was missing his home (Acts 13:13).
This incident may have caused Paul to question whether Mark could be a reliable missionary.
This created a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas and led Paul to refuse Mark’s accompaniment on their second journey to the churches of Cilicia and the rest of Asia Minor.
According to the Acts 15:39, Mark went to Cyprus with Barnabas after the Council of Jerusalem.
However, it can be assumed the troubles between Paul and Mark did not last long, because when Paul was first imprisoned, Mark, who was at the time in Rome with plans of visiting Asia Minor, visited him as one of his trusted companions (Col 4:10).
Mark’s hopes to visit Asia Minor were most likely carried out, because during Paul’s second captivity and just before his martyrdom, Paul wrote to Timothy at Ephesus advising him to “take Mark and bring him with you [to Rome], for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11). If Mark returned to Rome at this time, he was probably there when Paul was martyred.
Peter went to Antioch, then through Asia Minor (visiting the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, as mentioned in 1 Peter 1:1), and arrived in Rome in the second year of Emperor Claudius (AD 42; Eusebius, Eccl, Hist. 2.14.6).
Somewhere on the way, Peter encountered Mark and took him as travel companion.
During this time, he recorded Peter’s sermons and composed the Gospel According to Mark (Eccl. Hist. 15–16), some believe Mark was likely speaking of himself when he wrote the description of Jesus’ arrest in Gethsemani.
“Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked” (Mark 14:51-52).
According to Christian tradition, Mark also held a close relationship with St. Peter, who referred to Mark has ‘his son’ in his letter addressed to a number of churches in Asia Minor (1 Peter 5:13). Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Papias all indicate that Mark was an interpreter for Peter.
Mark then left for Alexandria in the third year of Claudius (43). Once in Alexandria, he founded of the Church of Africa, and became the first Bishop of Alexandria.
According to Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 2.24.1), Mark was succeeded by Annianus as the bishop of Alexandria in the eighth year of Nero (62/63), probably, but not definitely, due to his coming death.
Mark was martyred during the reign of Emperor Nero; however there are contradictions as to when exactly, most Biblical chronologists place his death between the 8th year to 14th year of Nero’s reign (A.D. 63-A.D. 68).
This would place his death to either right before or right after Nero began persecuting Christians.
It is believed right before because the Roman guards ( others say pagans of Serapis (the Serapion-Abbis Greek Egyptian god ) tied him to a horse’s tail and dragged him through the streets of Alexandria’s district of Bokalia but did not kill on the first day, they waited until the second day; where they once again tied a rope to his neck and dragged him until he was dead.
He reportedly saw visions of angels and heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him before he died.
Later Coptic tradition says that he was martyred in 68.
In 828 St. Mark’s body was brought to Venice from Alexandria.
Around the year 828 a group, two Venetian merchants, Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, having done business in Alexandria, went to worship at sanctuary of Alexandria of the saint in the church dedicated to him.
They thus discovered, from the monk Staurazio and the priest Theodore, custodians of the temple, that the church was going to be profaned by the Muslims who were plundering Christian churches in order to build mosques.
The sanctuary also risked being destroyed by the Arab governor of Alexandria, who had decided to use marble and columns from the Christian churches to build a palace in the ancient city of Babylon.
To console them the merchants offered to take them back to Venice together with the body of Mark.
The two merchants removed the remains of St. Mark.
At the moment of departure an intense odor came from the sanctuary of St. Mark and spread throughout the town.
All the inhabitants of Alexandria ran to the sacred place to see what had happened. Assured that Mark’s body was still in its place, tricked by the substitution, they returned quietly to their homes.
The two religious men replaced the evangelist’s body with the nearby body of the martyr Saint Claudia.
St Mark’s body and the relics were loaded aboard ship, concealed in wicker baskets and protected by cabbage leaves and pork, the latter frowned upon by the Islamic religion.
On passing the customs barrier the two Venetian merchants reported their goods with the fateful words “kanzir, kanzir” (pig), and were thus cleared by the excisemen who held their noses in disgust at the idea of pork.
The merchant’s voyage to Venice was full of adventure, when they reached the ocean a great storm arose before them.
Saint Mark then appeared to the captain and warned him to strike all his sails immediately, lest the ship, driven before the wind, should be wrecked upon hidden rocks.
They owned their safety to this miracle.
There is a mosaic on Saint Mark’s Basilica showing how the sailors covered the relics with a layer of pork. Since Muslims are not allowed to touch pork, this action was done to prevent Muslim intervention in the relic’s removal.
On 31st January 828 the body of St. Mark was deposited at the Port of Olivolo, welcomed by the local bishop and the Doge Giustiniano Particiaco who immediately ordered that a church be built as a sepulchre.
The relics were first placed in a corner of the Ducal Palace to await building of the new basilica that was to house them.
So Mark, already patron saint of Alexandria, now became patron saint of Venice.
The first church was built in 828 as the Holy Sepulchre, on the ruins of the first and second church on the space available between the Ducal Palace and the Church of San Teodoro , the orginal patron Saint of Venice.
One can only guess how he had this first construction based on a few archaeological remains found, the first church was certainly smaller than today and its modified structure became the actual crypt.
The original architect or “unknown architect” of San Marco is seen in a bas-relief depicting him is the first from the left, inside the great arch of the central door.
The “unknown architect” is represented in the guise of an oriental sage with a turban: in fact, Greeks were the architects called to build the Basilica by Doge Contarini.
It is shown seated to emphasize its level of dignity, and it also bears a crutch, a sign of physical infirmity.
In this he shares the great Greek and Nordic mythical tradition that he allowed to the homo faberto reach very high levels but obliged him to pay for it in some way with the infirmity.
The architect is then represented biting his own hand: the legend attributes this expression of disappointment to the punishment that the doge would have given him after the architect had replied to his congratulations for the great work he had done: “I could to do it better “(if I had more money): for this act of pride he had been punished.
In 832, Consecration of the first church of St. Mark (Doge Giovanni Partecipazio), but in 972 the church burned owing to the revolt against Doge Candiano IV and was rebuilt under Doge Orseolo I the Saint- a fire originated in the Ducal Palace was extended to the church destroying much of it.
A second church was built on the remains.
Behind the symbol of St Mark, portrayed in splendid and triumphant isolation, Carpaccio has given us a view of some of the places where the fortunes of the Serenissima had prospered and grown for more than five centuries. In this extraordinary wide-angled view the artist gives us a perfectly detailed depiction of the basin of St Mark’s towards San Nicolo di Lido, all the way to the heart of Venice: the Doges’ Palace, St Mark’s Basilica, the columns of St Theodore and St Mark, the Piazzetta, the bell-tower and the Clock Tower.
The origical Patron Saint pf Venice , Theodore of Amasea was a Roman recruit martyred in the early 4th century for professing his faith in Christianity. As a new recruit, he is also known as Saint Theodore Tiro, tiro meaning “recruit” in Latin.
Saint Theodore of Amasea is often confused with another Theodore – Saint Theodore of Stratelates, a Roman general – although most scholars believe the two Theodores were probably the same person.
The first known mention of Saint Theodore of Amasea derives from a panegyric delivered by Saint Gregory of Nyssa near Saint Theodore’s tomb in Euchaita, modern-day Turkey.
According to various legends, when Saint Theodore refused to offer sacrifices to the Roman gods along with his legion he was brought before the governor of the province to explain himself.
He declared himself to be a Christian, and when asked why he would profess faith in an outlawed religion, the worship of which was a capital offense, he responded, “I know not your gods. Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, is my God.”
He was dismissed and, according to some sources, went into the city of Amasea near the Iris River and burned down the temple of Cybele.
Not surprisingly, he was captured and was again brought before the Roman authorities who questioned and cajoled him, and then tortured him. When he was returned to his prison cell, he was comforted by visions of angels. Eventually, he was condemned to death and was burned alive in a furnace.
Here Be Dragons
Notably absent from these stories is any mention of dragons or dragon slaying. Why, then, is Saint Theodore frequently depicted slaying a dragon?
Saint Theodore’s identification as an heroic dragon-slayer may be related to the belief that by his intercession “devils were expelled and distempers cured.”
In The Dragon in Medieval East Christian and Islamic Art, Sara Kuehn suggests that the belief in Saint Theodore’s power to vanquish evil probably inspired the dragon-slaying motif. Kuehn writes, “Dragon-slaying riders were progressively identified as warrior saints and can conclusively be interpreted as exercising an apotropaic or protective function.”³
In 1063, during the construction of the current Saint Mark’s Basilica, Saint Mark’s relics could not be found, but according to tradition, in 1094 the saint himself revealed the location of his remains by extending an arm from a pillar. The newfound remains were placed in a sarcophagus in the basilica.
To build St. Mark’s Church, Venice brought the spiritual and material heritage of Byzantium to the West.
The Greek cross plan stands on a structure which in the longitudinal nave has basilica architectural motifs: the vertical arm of the cross is greater than those of the transepts and the altar is in the apse area. Above the cross are five cupolas, according to the eastern model, as a symbol of God’s presence.
Organisation of the space is rich in evocations that are not found in other Byzantine churches.
The interior has a unitary sequence subdivided into individual spatial orchestrations to which gold background mosaics ensure continuity and the church’s special way of being.
More than 8000 square metres of mosaic cover the walls, vaults and cupolas of the Basilica. Essentially Byzantine in its architecture, the Basilica finds in the mosaics its natural integrating element. The mosaic decorations were developed through some 8 centuries of the Basilica’s history.
They represent stories from the Bible (Old and New Testaments), allegorical figures, events in the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary, Saint Mark and other saints.
The mosaics, with their warm colors, particularly gold, decorate the ample spaces of the Basilica, from 28 metres wide up to 21 metres high. As in Middle-Eastern churches, the interaction of the decoration with a dim, but ever changing light, according to the time of day, creates a range of evocative and intense effects.
In the Basilica’s mosaics can be found the most significant evidence of Venice’s history, the ambitions, faith, languages and trends characterizing the evolution of its art.
From its Greek-Byzantine origins to the local artistic expressions and the skills to represent and interpret other outside influences, up to the modern, quite difficult art of preservation and restoration of these precious and complicated works.
n 1000, Doge Pietro Orseolo II sailed out of the lagoon to conquer cities on the Dalmatian coast.
It’s probable the red banner with lion of St. Mark flew on the Doge’s ship for the first time.
The expedition was successful, and thereafter, on May 9th the Venetians celebrated a ceremony of thanksgiving.
On the Fourth Crusade, Venetians sailed with a fleet of ships to take Constantinople.
The crusade was crucial for Venetians, since they were asked by Pope Innocent III to build the Navy that brought the Crusaders to Egypt.
Unfortunately, when all the ships were ready, the Crusaders didn’t have the money to pay for them, so the Venetians, who knew this would have affected their trade and finance, decided to participateC in the Fourth Crusade anyway, and compensated the loss with part of the plundered goods.
In 1203, just as the siege was going badly, the blind 90 year old Doge, Enrico Dandolo, holding the red and gold flag, stepped to the front of his ship, and ordered the ship to ram the shore.
The Doge leaped on land, put the banner in the ground, Venetian warriors followed his lead, and the battle was won.
Tip: In the Doge’s Palace, this scene is dramatized by Tintoretto The Fall of Constantinople, shown above.
As Venice expanded its maritime empire around the Mediterranean and in Italy, the flag flew above the castles, winged lions were carved on stone fortresses in conquered cities.
On the island of Crete and in the city of Bergamo, look for the lion of St. Mark today.
In 1204 , the Fourth Crusade took place and transport of marbles and works of art into the basilica that had been brought to Venice following the conquest of Constantinople – including ,the four horses, icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, enamels of the Golden Altar-piece, relics, crosses, chalices, patens, today in the treasure: Doge Enrico Dandolo.
After the Venetians left Constantinople, some of the treasures they had appropriated were lost at sea and some were sold along the journey, but most of the objects arrived safely in Venice, where they were unloaded and unpacked at the Arsenale.
After they were evaluated by various officials, they were eventually repurposed to enhance the beauty, status, and prestige of La Serenissima.
For example, building material and other decorative ornaments stripped from the churches of Constantinople were used to clothe the basilica of Saint Mark “in the borrowed raiment of vanished sanctuaries” so that “what had been an austere brick structure soon shone, and sparkled, and flashed in the sun.”
Hollis explains that a centurion’s cuirass, a crocodile, and a disembodied head “became the body of Saint Theodore.”
Similarly, a pair of brazen angel’s wings and a lion were “welded together to make the emblem of Saint Mark.”
Both of these new creations were hoisted atop a pair of Numidian granite columns, also taken from Constantinople, and set in Saint Mark’s Square.
The two statutes, symbolizing two patron saints of Venice, remain in the square to this day.
The high altar retable of St. Mark’s – the Pala d’Oro – is universally considered to be the most precious and refined expression of Byzantine genius and the cult of light, understood as the raising of man towards God. It glorifies the evangelist and contains his relics.
Pala derives from the Latin palla, cloth, sometimes decorated with images of saints and used to cover the altar or embellish its background during the church service.
These cloths were then replaced by gold or silver – frequently found at least in Venetian lagoon area churches – hence the name Pala d’Oro (gold) or d’argento (silver).
The most famous of all is the one in St. Mark’s, ordered from Constantinople by the doge Ordelaffo Falier in 1102 and completed in 1105.
It consists of 2 parts: the Pala d’Oro proper and the wooden container behind it.
Since its origins it has been opened only during liturgical celebrations in the Basilica, a tradition that continues today. The rest of the time it is covered by another altar-piece known as “ferial“, a painting on wood.
The oldest of these was done by Paolo Veneziano and his sons in 1343-1345 depicting stories of St. Mark and other saints.
It is now in the Church Museum. The present day one, the work of a late Gothic master, dates to the first half of the 15th century and may be admired on the rear side of the retable.
On the floor of St Mark’s Basilica, just in front of the main doorway on the left, is a curious but beautiful mosaic of a starred dodecahedron.
It is attributed to Paolo Uccello, the famous Florentine Renaissance artist (1397-1475), who here was perhpas influenced by Luca Bartolommeo de Pacioli (1445 – 1517), even though the latter was only thirty at the time of the artist’s death.
De Pacioli was a Franciscan monk and a famous mathematician and is considered to be the father of modern bookkeeping.
He was also the author of a treatise entitled De Divina Proportione, published in Venice in 1509, which was primarily concerned with the “golden ratio” and its application in architecture and painting.
By extending the faces of the dodecahedron so that they meet to form “pyramids”, a star is obtained, hence the “starred dodecahedron” made up of twelve pentagons. The basis of the pentagram (the five-pointed star made up of five straight lines), meant that this figure was, for the wise men of Antiquity, a symbol of Venus, the planet governing Venice, which explains its presence here.
In traditional symbolism, the dodecahedron was the form that best represented the manifestation of God in Nature. For Plato, it was the symbol par excellence of cosmic harmony.
It is also a three-dimensional representation of the symmetry of the pentagon and of the “golden ratio” that occurs throughout the natural world.
This “golden ratio” or “golden mean” (1.618) described by Kepler in his Mysterium Cosmographicum as “a gem of geometry”, is the essential property of the dodecahedron and also the other geometrical forms that Plato described as “celestial”.
Totalling five in number, they were the model for all the forms to be found in the natural world – octahedron (air), cube (earth), tetrahedron (fire), dodecahedron (the universe), icosahedron (water).
These universal forms are systematically organised in a geometrical form in which each figure has its own mathematical and philosophical interpretation, hence their use in religious art and religious architecture.
The significance of this dodoecahedron just inside the entrance to St Mark’s is indeed significant and the mosaic really does deserve your focus, not just because it is a beautiful floor mosaic, but because of what it means with cosmic harmony, something that is so central to both religious art and architecture – that sense of a closeness to God and the universe.¹
The Interdict of 1606–07
In 1606 Pope Paul V imposed an interdict (the denial of sacraments and other ecclesiastical privileges derived from, but short of, excommunication) on Venice. It was the culmination both of papal assertions of power in Italy that came in the wake of the Counter Reformation and of the emphasis on secular authority in Venice.
Pope Clement VIII had recently tried to rein in the Venetian church, which enjoyed a significant amount of freedom: near complete autonomy at the basilica, measured authority over the clergy of the region surrounding Venice, laws against selling property to the church, and relative religious tolerance.
The conflict peaked soon after Clement died and the legalist, domineering new Pope Paul V was elected.
The matter came to a head when Venice tried, convicted, and punished two priests. In response the pope put Venice under threat of interdict.
The Venetians did not balk, arguing that a prince was directly responsible to God for the good of the people and not to God’s intermediary. The interdict went into effect just before St. Mark’s day and Corpus Christi, a calculated papal tactic to curb civic pride and to convince the Venetian public their government was willing to deprive them of the sacrament.
The Venetians argued in turn that the interdict was invalid because the pope had overreached by using his
spiritual authority in secular matters. The war of words began and soon pamphlets flew from the presses in Rome and Venice.
Corpus Christi was an important observance for the Venetians. Civic and religious leaders took part in the occasion together, displaying Venetian civic piety and clerical loyalty to Venice. Mass was celebrated with great pomp
in the basilica.
In the accompanying procession, groups carried floats with state-versus-church slogans, such as “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” and “My kingdom is not of this world.”
Floats also portrayed such scenes as Doge Doná alongside St. Francis and St. Dominic (whose
orders defied the interdict) supporting a crumbling church. Venice’s defiance won out, owing
to both public and foreign support: in 1607 secret negotiations secured the end of the interdict.
Afterward the matter was officially quieted, and Venetians returned to cultivating the myth of Venice’s superior religiousity through good interactions with the Roman church. Over the next 20 years relations were mostly quiet.
In 1628, however, there was a war in which Venice joined antipapal interests to keep the pope’s temporal power circumscribed. The pope was defeated but war brought plague, and in 1630 a third of Venice’s population perished.²
In the winter of 2019, Sirens wailed across Venice from the early morning hours, warning of the impending high tide, and the crypt beneath St. Mark’s Basilica was swiftly inundated.
Dirty water swirled around marble tombs inside the 12th century crypt of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, which suffered untold damage when an unprecedented high tide swept through the city.
Groups of volunteers and students arrived in the city centre to help businesses mop up, while schools remained closed, as they have been most of the week.
Pumps worked overtime to clear the seawater from around the altar and under the pink and white stone arches, as the historic monument’s custodians look on in sadness and anger.
“We’re talking about millions of euros worth of damage,” said Carlo Alberto Tesserin, First Procurator of the Basilica, who is the president of a team responsible for managing the historic site.
“We said last year that the Basilica had aged 20 years in a high tide. It risks having aged much more than that in this one,” he told AFP.
Only once since records began in 1923 has the water crept even higher, reaching 1.94 metres in 1966. As winds whipped the waves on the famous square, transformed into a lake, the waters surged into the Basilica with a force “never seen before, not even in the 1966 flood,” Tesserin said. Sewage and drowned rats could be seen floating in the city’s pungent alleyways.
Warnings a year ago about potential damage from increasingly high tides “went unheeded,” he said.
Basilica San Marco was particularly at risk, sitting as it does in one of the lowest parts of the city. “The damage we see now is nothing compared to that within the walls. The salt enters the marble, the bricks, everywhere,” Tesserin said.
Pierpaolo Campostrini, who sits on the procuratorial of St. Mark, the board that helps manage and protect the church stated, “I mean, there are a few things that we can do for the bricks.
When they are too salty, we have simply to substitute them for the marble. We put the marble inside of these pools of fresh water, and we cleaned it with a repetitive cycle of fresh water.”
Italy’s culture minister Dario Franceschini said Tuesday the government would cough up an as-yet unspecified amount of funding to help preserve the site in the UNESCO city.
“The experts gave us ample warning. They weren’t listened to,” the procurator said.
The city stands on wooden piles driven by their thousands into the mud, but rising sea levels and heavy cruise ship traffic have eaten away at the surrounding marshes and mudbanks. That leaves the gradually sinking Serenissima more vulnerable to the whims of the Adriatic sea.
A massive infrastructure project called MOSE has been underway since 2003 to protect it, but has been plagued by cost overruns, corruption scandals (In 2014, the former mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, stepped down after he was accused of involvement in the embezzling of around €20m ($27m; £16m) in public funds earmarked for flood defences) and delays and isn’t expected until 2021 for completion.
The plan involves 78 gates that can be raised to protect Venice’s lagoon during high tides — but a recent attempt to test part of the barrier caused worrying vibrations and engineers discovered parts had rusted.
The idea is to build a barrier on the island which separates the sea from the lagoon. It is a huge project because this project cost more than 6 billion euro but has not been completed.
That’s been completed till the 90%, but if it is not completely 100%, simply, it doesn’t work.
“It’s a religious, cultural and artistic symbol, and it’s unique,” he added.
As volunteers struggled to sweep waters off the Basilica’s mosaic floor, the procurator said he was “very worried”, as “every day there’s a risk of a big flood”.
“There’s another high tide tonight, and more forecast for the coming days,” Tesserin said. “For Venice to survive we need to act now”.
sources
¹medmeanderings.com
² alcm.org
³reliquarian.com