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Danny Wall The Impact of Relics on Venetian Culture after the Fourth Crusade Fernand Braudel once wrote that Venice was the greatest commercial success of the Middle Ages a city without industry, except for naval-military construction, which came to bestride the Mediterranean world and to control an empire through mere trading enterprise.[footnoteRef:1] In 1204, the crusader armies of Europe sacked the city of Constantinople under the leadership of the partially blind, elderly Venetian doge, Enrico Dandolo. From the ruins of the Byzantine Empire, Venice took its place as the champion of Mediterranean culture. After the sacking of Constantinople, numerous religious relics flooded into the city of Venice, serving as props by the republic to demonstrate her supremacy over Byzantium and to support her claims in the Mediterranean.[footnoteRef:2] Prior to the Crusade of 1204, the Republic of Venice was primarily a trading enterprise, with culture often a sideshow to trade. The politics of Venice were dominated by capitalist doges such as the father and son duo of Sebastian and Pietro Ziani, who sandwiched the rule of Enrico Dandolo.[footnoteRef:3] Despite the rocky relationship between Venice and Constantinople in the 12th century, Venice turned to Byzantium for cultural inspiration.[footnoteRef:4] Following the Fourth Crusade, when Venice took a turn for broader imperialism, a cultural shift occurred that caused Venice to see itself in a different light and approach its Mediterranean heritage differently than it had before. [1: Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, From the 15th to the 18th Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), as cited by Paul Gallagher, How Venice Rigged the First, and Worst, Global Financial Collapse (Fidelio Magazine, 1995).] [2: Maria Georgopoulou, Late Medieval Crete and Venice: An Appropriation of Byzantine Heritage (New York: The Art Bulletin, 1995), 479. Georgopoulou also cites S. Bettini, Venice, the Pala dOro, and Constantinople in Buckton, ed., 35-64.] [3: The doges of Venice were frequently wealthy landlords, or otherwise held stakes in the economic well-being of the republic. In order for a doge to be elected, a near two-thirds majority vote would have to be reached, according to Jay S. Coggins and C. Federico Perali in 64% Majority Rule in Ducal Venice: Voting for the Doge (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), 710. This makes it clear that economic growth was a focus for the broad majority of Venetians at the time, who routinely elected leaders with economic backgrounds.] [4: Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479.]

My research emphasizes the role of relics in changing Venetian culture into the nest from which an empire could be built. Venice had a long history of collecting relics, dating back to the theft of the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria by Venetian merchants in 828. The relics brought back from the sack of Constantinople were even more influential in making Venice the heir to the Mediterranean, perhaps, than the sensational riches [the Venetians] discovered in Constantinople and the vast territory gained by the division of the Byzantine Empire.[footnoteRef:5] Certainly, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire paved the way for Venice to seize control of the Mediterranean. However, I would contend that the culture of Venice, in particular the way in which religious relics were perceived and used, was equally responsible for making Venice an imperial power to be reckoned with in the Mediterranean. [5: Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (New York: Penguin Group, 2004), 268.]

Relics are unlike other commodities or goods in that they are not given their value by any intrinsic economic properties, but rather by the intangible concepts the relics represent.[footnoteRef:6] Because relics are given their value by the community which understands what they symbolize, it is important to ask why relics of Byzantium were given such power over culture in Venice. Maria Georgopoulou put it best when she wrote the incorporation of these objects into the civic center of Venice played a major role in shaping [Venices] political identity.[footnoteRef:7] The relics brought back from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade were placed at the very center of the city in Saint Marks Basilica. The fact that Venetia held the relics of Byzantium in such high regard attests to the argument that Byzantine culture was emulated by the Venetians. In this paper, I propose that the relics brought back from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade amplified the effect of Venetian culture becoming the heir to the Mediterranean in place of the fallen Byzantine Empire. One case of this is the cultural success of the Fourth Crusade having brought about a change in the title of the doge, changing it to quartae partis et dimidiae totius imperii Romaniae Dominator, or Ruler of one fourth and a half of the empire of Rome.[footnoteRef:8] [6: According to Holger A. Klein, the only instance in which a specific monetary/economic is assigned to a relic is found not in a Byzantine, but in an Arabic source: Yahya B. Said Antks Tarkh or Chronique Universelle, ed. and trans. I. Kratchkovsky and A. Vasiliev (Paris, 1932), 770. As found in Holger A. Klein, Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, 2004), 283.] [7: Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479.] [8: Ibid., 480.]

In general, historians have tended to focus on the economic or political consequences of the Fourth Crusade. While these aspects of the crusade are certainly crucial to understanding the environment of the Mediterranean region at the time, they have been belabored by scholars. With so much focus on the politics and economics of the Fourth Crusade, it comes as no surprise that modern historians tend to devalue spiritual motivation.[footnoteRef:9] By addressing the amassing of relics in Venice after the Fourth Crusade as merely a case study of how the Venetians used religious relics to appropriate Mediterranean culture, I will likely come into contention with traditional historiography about how Venetia saw its own Mediterranean heritage at the time. I hope to provide new insight into the way in which relics in Venice were symbols not only of power, but also of heritage. [9: Jaroslav Folda, review of Donald E. Queller, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 1201-1204 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). Review published in Speculum.]

In the sixth century, Venice was but a territory of Byzantium; Venice would not gain full sovereignty until the early eleventh century.[footnoteRef:10] During this period, Venetian trade slowly expanded and grew in influence across the Mediterranean. Inevitably, Venice would fall under the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire. Despite a growth in Venices own Mediterranean influence, the republic still saw itself as culturally subordinate to the Byzantines, and mimicked many features of Byzantine culture. For example, a medieval rebuilding of a fourth century cathedral just northeast of Venice at Aquileia is famous not only for its ancient floor mosaics, but also for its paintings of Christs passion, which have been called supreme examples of [the fusion] of Byzantine and late Romanesque mannerism.[footnoteRef:11] Art in 12th century Venice typically fed on elements of Byzantine art, which demonstrates that Venice was already attributing intrinsic value to aspects of Byzantine culture. [10: Loc. cit.] [11: Otto Demus, Romanesque Mural Painting (New York: 1970), 89. ]

The agglomeration of relics, both religious and otherwise, into the city symbolized the knighting of the Republic as the heir to the Byzantine Mediterranean. For example, the famous bronze Four Horses, which may have come from the Hippodrome in Constantinople, were displayed prominently in a way that championed the power of Venice.[footnoteRef:12] Other examples include the Tetrarchs[footnoteRef:13] and the purposed columns of Acre.[footnoteRef:14] The sudden transfer of relics from Constantinople came to not only represent the shift in eastern power to Venice, but Venices own political independence from rest of western Europe, in particular the other cities of the Italian peninsula. Venice displayed their spoils of war more publically than other cities at the time. The public, open display of relics taken from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade can be seen to represent a more widespread attitude of Venetian dominance among the public. [12: Michael Jacoff, The Horses of San Marco and the Quadriga of the Lord (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), 62-108 passim. Jacoffs writing was found in the footnotes of Maria Georgopoulous Late Medieval Crete and Venice: An Appropiation of Byzantine Heritage. See Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479.] [13: Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479. Georgopoulou cites A. Ragona, I Tetrarchi dei gruppi porfirei di San Marco in Venezia (Caltagirone, Italy: 1963). Later, she references the possible origin of the Tetrarchs as the Philadelphion of Constantinople, noting a later discovery that the missing foot of one of the statues was found in Constantinople in the excavation of Myrelation. This is cited as C. Mango, Le Dveloppment urbain de Constantinople (Paris: 1985), 28ff.] [14: F. W. Deichmann, I pilastri acritani, Rendiconti Pontificia Accademia romana de Archaelogia (1980), 75-89. As cited by Georgopoulou (see Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479.). It was later discovered that the columns were actually from an early Christian church of St. Polyeuktos in Constantinople, but early accounts of the pillars mistakenly attributed them to the St. Jean dAcre.]

If the relics brought back to Venice played such an important role in advancing the position of Venice in the Mediterranean, it is reasonable to ask how they did not begin to lose their prevalence when the supply of relics so greatly increased after 1204. The answer to this question is complicated. As stated before, relics are valued not for their economic worth, but for the value of the intangibles they symbolize. Even for the merchant empire of Venice, applying economic value to relics would have been difficult, especially when the great increase in supply would have rapidly depreciated their economic value,[footnoteRef:15] Perhaps the value of these relics was not only placed in the communal understanding of what they represented, but also in the circumstances of their acquisition and mode of transfer.[footnoteRef:16] Relics in Venice were likely more influential because they were acquired through the direct military dominance of Venice over Constantinople. [15: For a detailed discussion of the intricacies of economic evaluation of relics, see A. Cutler, Gifts and Gift Exchange as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and Related Economies, (2001), 247-78. As referenced by Holger A. Klein in Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West. Klein, op. cit., 283.] [16: Klein, op. cit., 283.]

Perhaps, relics were slow in contraction of value because they had such a longstanding history in Venice. Historians have described Venice as the most assiduous collector of relics in the earlier period of the middle ages.[footnoteRef:17] According to Grant Allen, the Venetian fleets, in the early ages, brought home so many bodies of saints that the city became a repository of holy corpses.[footnoteRef:18] The Venetians held these relics as close to heart as they held their city itself. By the time of the Fourth Crusade, Saint Marks basilica in the center of Venice was well established as a place symbolic of Venices claim to Mediterranean heritage. [17: Wilfrid Bonser, The Cult of Relics in the Middle Ages (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1962), 237.] [18: Grant Allen, Venice: Grant Allens Historical Guide Books to the Principle Cities of Europe (New York: A. Wessels Company, 1907), 21. ]

It comes as no surprise, then, that when the crusader armies gathered in Venice in 1201, a great service was held in the Cathedral of Saint Mark, where Dandolo himself addressed the assembled congregation to initiate the crusade.[footnoteRef:19] Of course, after the crusade, several relics looted from Constantinople would be housed in this same basilica. Upon entering the city of Constantinople, the Venetians recognized much that was of artistic value in the city, and took it for themselves.[footnoteRef:20] The Venetians were able to so easily recognize the relics and reliquaries of Constantinople at least partially because they had a long history of recognizing and seizing relics. While the most famous relics taken from Constantinople were the four Bronze Horses that champion the face of Saint Marks basilica,[footnoteRef:21] these were not the only relics that were taken. The historian, W. B. Bartlett, rightly points out that many other priceless objects were taken in this way, ironically preserving some of the heritage of Byzantium for future generations to appreciate.[footnoteRef:22] [19: W. B. Bartlett, An Ungodly War: The Sack of Constantinople and the Fourth Crusade (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000), 75.] [20: Loc. cit.] [21: The Four Horses which overlook Saint Marks Square are not the originals, but rather imitations of the original horses. The original bronze Four Horses are contained inside the basilica.] [22: Bartlett, op. cit., 154.]

Preserving Byzantine culture was certainly not on the minds of the Venetians who so aggressively looted the city. Instead, the Venetians looted the city so thoroughly that Venice would quickly become the cultural center of the Mediterranean: within a century or two, the city would be at the heart of that amazing outpouring of creativity known to historians as the Renaissance.[footnoteRef:23] In large part, this was due to the way in which Venice received and used the relics brought back from Constantinople. Venice displayed relics in interesting ways that differed from many other cities around the Mediterranean, and used them for different roles. Medieval relics were used for a broad variety of purposes, from treating medical ailments to justifying cultural expansion. Wilfrid Bonser asserts that cures could be procured from direct means, that is by the laying on of hands or else through the medium of inanimate objects such as relics.[footnoteRef:24] In contrast, Venice stored relics, icons, and liturgical vessels in the treasury of the basilica of Saint Mark [for the reason of] enhancing the sacred character of the state church and legitimizing Venices involvement in the crusade.[footnoteRef:25] The use of relics as symbols of cultural appropriation, while not entirely unique to Venice, may have been unique to Venice on the Italian peninsula.[footnoteRef:26] [23: Loc. cit.] [24: Bonser, Medical Folklore of Venice and Rome (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1956), 1 sqq.] [25: Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479. Also, c.f. D. Pincus, Christian Relics and the Body Politic: A Thirteenth Century Relief Plaque in the Church of San Marco in Interpretazioni Veneziane: Studi di Staria dellArte in anore di Michelangelo Murara, ed. D. Rosand (Venice: 1984), 39-57 passim. Pincus cited by Georgopoulou. ] [26: Jacoff, op. cit., passim. Jacoff argued that Venice displayed their relics in innovative ways that did not simply duplicate earlier practices of exhibiting antiquities in other Italian cities. See Georgopoulou, op. cit., 479.]

Venetias creative, yet sometimes impractical, display of relics in public spaces is nowhere more clear than at the entrance to Saint Marks basilica. There, the two Pillars of Acre stand proudly, albeit at a bit of an awkward and disconcerting distance from the actual entrance. Charles Freeman attributes this placement to an Old Testament description of Solomons Temple, in which two bronze pillars in the vestibular entrance are mentioned.[footnoteRef:27] This placement of the columns signifies more than just religious appropriation of the famous Temple of Solomon: it establishes the city of Venice as the heir to the traditions of Acre, and Constantinople, where the columns were taken from.[footnoteRef:28] The Venetians profound bravura of relics emulated that of the Byzantines to a great extent. Saint Marks basilica was made to be a lockbox for as many relics as the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Pharos, a looters paradise in Constantinople until after the Fourth Crusade. As described by Robert de Clari, a lower-class knight who participated in the Fourth Crusade, the Church was purposed to have held two pieces of Christs cross, the iron lance the Centurion had stabbed Christ with, two nails from Christs crucifixion, a vial of Christs blood, the tunic He wore during His passion, part of the robe of the Virgin, the head of John the Baptist, and the notorious Crown of Thorns.[footnoteRef:29] [27: Charles Freeman, The Horses of Saint Marks: A Story of Triumph in Byzantium, Paris, and Venice (New York: The Overlook Press, 2004), 94.] [28: It was eventually discovered that the columns never belonged to Acre. Rather, they likely belonged to the Church of Saint Polyeuktos in Constantinople, and were seized during the Fourth Crusade. They were mistaken as the columns of Acre for centuries, and remain at Saint Marks basilica today, however.] [29: Robert de Clari, La Conqute de Constantinople (circa 1204). Also, c. f. Robert de Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople trans. Edgar Holmes McNeal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Cited by Bartlett, op. cit. 155.]

In large part, Venetia used relics to inherit the heritage of the Byzantines, and of the Mediterranean, by connecting themselves to a tradition of culture. For example, on the north wall of Saint Marks basilica, near the baptistery, there is a rare chance survival of twelfth-century mural painting in Venice.[footnoteRef:30] Throughout Venice, and most prominently at the cathedral of Aquileia just north of the city, art reflected a fusion of Venetian and Byzantine culture. Venice was certainly not the only power to make use of Byzantine relics after the Fourth Crusade. The relics from Constantinople travelled far and wide around the Mediterranean during the remainder of the 13th century after the sacking of the city. However, Venice made use of relics and reliquaries in a way that connected Byzantine and Venetian culture, unlike other powers of the time. [30: Thomas E.A. Dale, Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia: Romanesque Mural Painting in the Crypt of Aquileia Cathedral (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 28. Dale references F. Forlati, Ritrovamenti in S. Marco un affresco del Duecento, Arte Veneta (1963), 223ff.; S. Bettini, Appunti di storia della pittura veneta nel Medioevo, Arte Veneta (1966), 26; Brusin and Lorenzoni, Larte del Patriarcato, 70ff.; Demus, Ein Wandgemlde in San Marco, 125-144.]

At the time, relics, suitably displayed in a lavish shrine or sculptural image of the saint, might enhance the prestige and attract wealth to a cathedral or an abbey, as in the case of Sainte-Foy at Conques.[footnoteRef:31] Often, saints themselves were used as political relics, such as James of Compostela[footnoteRef:32], Martial of Limoges[footnoteRef:33], or Cyrus of Pavia[footnoteRef:34]. For Venice, relics were even more significant. In Venice, relics were used to justify the political authority and autonomy of the city.[footnoteRef:35] The Venetians established critical reliquaries for the relics they gave such importance to. As argued by Thomas Dale, crypts and cathedrals amplified the political function of the relics.[footnoteRef:36] The methods by which these relics were displayed reflected a tradition of Byzantine heritage. At Aquileia, the relics are surrounded by paintings harking back to the heyday of Byzantine culture. Byzantine paintings even adorn the walls of Saint Marks basilica. [31: Ibid., 3.] [32: Abou-el-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints, 19-22. Found in citations by Dale, 3.] [33: D.F. Callaghan, The Sermons of Admar of Chabannes and the Cult of Saint Martial of Limoges, Revue Bndictine (1976), 251-95. Found in citations by Dale, 3.] [34: A.M. Orselli, La citta altomedioevale e il suo santo patron, RSCI (1978), 47ff. Found in citations by Dale, 3.] [35: Dale, op. cit.] [36: Loc. cit.]

It is important to remember that, at the time, religious followers across the Mediterranean were already urged to pay respects to the religious relics nearby. The Spanish Saint Ignatius of Loyola once remarked that followers should praise relics of saints, by venerating the relics and praying to the saints.[footnoteRef:37] Religious art was worshipped in similar ways around the Mediterranean as well. Saint Ignatius further mentioned that followers should regularly praise church buildings and their decorations; also statues and paintings, and their veneration according to what they represent.[footnoteRef:38] In this way, the famous Renaissance art of intellectuals like Michelangelo would seize the stage of religious culture later on. [37: The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, ed. and trans. George E. Ganss, S. J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Studies, 1992), 358-360. As cited by Ann W. Astell, Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages (New York: Cornell University Press, 2006), 195. Saint Ignatius was a Spanish knight from a Basque family who eventually became a priest and lived in the 15th and 16th centuries.] [38: Loc. cit.]

Venice was different in that relics were not merely symbols of religious zealot or political superiority. Venice truly saw itself as the heir to a longstanding tradition of Mediterranean culture, embodied in the relics brought to the city and displayed in ways that emulated that of Constantinople. In a sense, the transfer of relics from Constantinople to Venice after the Fourth Crusade represented a passing of the torch the torch being Mediterranean heritage to Venice, after being passed around between the greatest cities of the Mediterranean region. Venice appropriated Byzantine art and imagery in a similar fashion to relics, following the success of the abbreviated legendaries, such as those of the Dominicans de Mailly, Bartholomew of Trent, and Thomas of Cantimpr [whose] paintings and frescoes penetrated the religious life of the faithful.[footnoteRef:39] [39: Andr Vauchez, Saints and Pilgrimages: New and Old.]

The English journalist and art critic, James Dafforne, commented that there is considerable similarity of plan between this church (Saint Marks) and that of Saint Sophias (the famous Hagia Sophia in Constantinople).[footnoteRef:40] In fact, the architects employed on the building came from Constantinople, and they gave it the form adopted in the famous [Hagia Sophia], that of a Greek cross.[footnoteRef:41] George Gwilt noted that Saint Marks plan is that of a Greek cross, whose arms are vaulted hemicylindrically, and, meeting in the center of the building, terminate in four semicircular arches on the four sides of a square from the anterior angles of the piers, pendentives gather over, as in Saint Sophia in Constantinople.[footnoteRef:42] These architectural similarities between Constantinople and Venetia are no coincident: Venice conspired to inherit the cultural traditions of Constantinople in regards to large reliquaries like these churches. [40: James Dafforne, contribution to The Art Journal: New Series, vol. 1 (London: Hodgson and Graves, 1875), 360.] [41: Loc. cit.] [42: George Gwilt the Younger was a famous architect who lived from 1775 to 1856 and was the son of another famous architect, George Gwilt the Elder. He commented on numerous architectural feats around Europe. As referenced in Dafforne, 360.]

Venice may have used relics for more than simply justifying their claim as heir to the Mediterranean dominion. In Byzantium, we historians see a long trail of the use of relics by rulers as a means of establishing superiority over other rulers. Frequently, recipients of such sacred treasures must have found themselves in a position of inferiority a reaction undoubtedly intended by the giver as part of his political message.[footnoteRef:43] Certainly, rulers with broad access to religious relics would have held power over those without access.[footnoteRef:44] It would absolutely make sense that the Venetians, when given widespread access to religious relics after the Fourth Crusade, would have used this newfound power in a similar way to the Byzantines, establishing dominance over subordinate Mediterranean states. In many ways, the reception of relics in Venice not only enhanced its culture, but provided the means through which Venice could establish a Mediterranean empire. Venice learned these techniques from Byzantium directly. A thirteenth century account by Andrea Dandolo details Doge Agnellus, a Catholic man, receiving from Emperor Leo the body of Saint Zachariah the prophet, a particle of the wood of the cross, and vestments of Christ and His mother.[footnoteRef:45] [43: Klein, op. cit., 289.] [44: For a discourse on the intricacies of establishing superiority through the gift-giving of relics, see A. Cutler, Les changes de dons entre Byzance et lIslam, (1996), 55ff. Cited by Holger A. Klein. c.f. Klein, op. cit. 289ff.] [45: Andrea Dandolo, Chronicum Venetum, ed. and trans. L.A. Muratori (Milan, 1728), vol. 8, chap. 1, line 142.]

Venice perpetuated the use of relics as symbols of heritage in their colony at Crete shortly after the Fourth Crusade. For example, the former Byzantine and now Latin cathedral of Candia (Crete) duplicated in function the basilica of San Marco in Venice: each contained the relics of the saint associated with the establishment of Christianity in the local community.[footnoteRef:46] In addition, Venice followed the Byzantine precedent of establishing dominance over subordinate states such as Zara. Ernst Kantorowicz has demonstrated that the Venetian approbation of the doge, which was initially based on Byzantine ceremonials, was one of the most successful ways of imposing Venices claims of sovereignty over upon the local population.[footnoteRef:47] In the same manner, Venice demanded in 1204 that the clergy of the Dalmation city of Zara take part in the performance of the lauds service in honor of the doge, the patriarch, and the archbishop twice a year, at Christmas and Easter.[footnoteRef:48] [46: Georgopoulou, op. cit., 485. Georgopoulous cites A. Niero, Reliquie e corpi di santi, in S. Tramontin et. al., Culto dei santi a Venezia, Biblioteca Agriografica Veneziana n. Venice (1965), 181-208.] [47: Loc. cit. Georgopoulou references the work of Ernst Kantorwicz, Laudes Regiae (Berkeley: 1946), 151.] [48: Loc. cit. Again, Georgopoulou cites Kantorowicz, 151.]

To conclude that the cultural impact of relics on the Republic of Venice after the Fourth Crusade played a more significant role in allowing Venice to become a Mediterranean empire than the politics of the disappearance of Byzantium or the vast gains in territory and wealth is a complex argument to make. However, with this argument I hope to have challenged traditional historiography by asserting that Venice also became an empire because the Fourth Crusade influx of relics enabled Venice to take on its Mediterranean heritage. The torch of heritage in the Mediterranean was passed back and forth among the great cities of the region since the time of the Romans, and the clever use of relics by the Venetians allowed them to seize this torch after the sacking of Constantinople. Even before Venice gained its sovereignty in the early eleventh century, Venice turned to Byzantium for cultural inspiration.[footnoteRef:49] Venice embraced its historical Mediterranean heritage through the agglomeration of relics in the city, many of which were stolen from Constantinople and consecrated alongside the prior collections of art and relics depicting Saint Hermagoras, and later, Saint Mark, the patron saints of Venice.[footnoteRef:50] Venice championed Byzantine art and relics in the very center of their city, based religious architecture on prior examples in Constantinople, and followed Byzantine examples of political use of relics. In these ways, we see that Venice emulated Byzantium and approached its heritage in the Mediterranean differently than it ever had before, paving the way for it to become a powerful maritime empire. [49: Ibid., 479.] [50: Dale, op. cit., 51. Dale discusses the replacement of Hermagoras as patron saint with Saint Mark at Aquileia. ]

Notes (Primary)Clari, Robert de. La Conqute de Constantinople. Circa 1204.Dandolo, Andrea. Chronicum Venetum. ed. and trans. L.A. Muratori. Milan: 1728.Said, Yahya ibn Antk. Tarkh or Chronique Universelle, ed. and trans. I. Kratchkovsky and A. Vasiliev. Paris: 1932.The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, ed. and trans. George E. Ganss, S. J. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Studies, 1992.Notes (Secondary)Abou-el-Haj. The Medieval Cult of Saints.Allen, Grant. Venice: Grant Allens Historical Guide Books to the Principle Cities of Europe. New York: A. Wessels Company, 1907.Astell, Ann W. Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages. New York: Cornell University Press, 2006.Bartlett, W. B. An Ungodly War: The Sack of Constantinople and the Fourth Crusade. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000.Bettini, S. Venice, the Pala dOro, and Constantinople. 35-64.Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, From the 15th to the 18th Century. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.Bonser, Wilfrid. Medical Folklore of Venice and Rome. (1956): 1sqq.

Callaghan, D.F. The Sermons of Admar of Chabannes and the Cult of Saint Martial of Limoges. Revue Bndictine (1976): 251-295.Coggins, Jay S. and Perali, C. Federico. 64% Majority Rule in Ducal Venice: Voting for the Doge (1998): 710.Cutler, A. Gifts and Gift Exchange as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and Related Economies. (2001): 247-278.Dafforne, James. Contribution to The Art Journal: New Series, vol. 1. London: Hodgson and Graves, 1875.Dale, Thomas E.A. Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia: Romanesque Mural Painting in the Crypt of Aquileia Cathedral. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.Deichmann, F.W. , I pilastri acritani, Rendiconti Pontificia Accademia romana de Archaelogia. 1980.Demus, Otto. Romanesque Mural Painting. New York: 1970.Folda, Jaroslav. Review of Donald E. Queller, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 1201-1204. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Review published in Speculum.Freeman, Charles. The Horses of Saint Marks: A Story of Triumph in Byzantium, Paris, and Venice. New York: The Overlook Press, 2004.Georgopoulou, Maria. Late Medieval Crete and Venice: An Appropriation of Byzantine Heritage. The Art Bulletin (1995): 479.Jacoff, Michael. The Horses of San Marco and the Quadriga of the Lord. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.Klein, Holger A. Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West. Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University (2004): 283.Mango, C. Le Dveloppment urbain de Constantinople. Paris: 1985.Orselli, A.M. La citta altomedioevale e il suo santo patron. RSCI (1978).Phillips, Jonathan. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. New York: Penguin Group, 2004.Ragona, A. I Tetrarchi dei gruppi porfirei di San Marco in Venezia. Caltagirone, Italy: 1963.Vauchez, Andr . Saints and Pilgrimages: New and Old.