pope had intended to do it but died before he could get the job done. The sentence stood for seventeen years while pontiff and emperor contended for control of Italy. The pope stubbornly maintained that he was the ultimate spiritual authority in Europe and, as such, had jurisdiction even over the emperor. Frederick, an inveterate warrior who aspired to be a new Charlemagne, supported a series of anti-popes in an effort to undermine Alexander’s position.
The result was a brutal power struggle that engulfed much of Europe in war. For a while it seemed the emperor would prevail as his armies pressed into Italy, but after a disastrous defeat at Legnano in 1176, and with an uprising against him back in Germany, Frederick agreed to accept Alexander’s terms.
Venice had managed to alienate both sides in the conflict, but Doge Sebastiano Ziani, a brilliant administrator, aimed to repair those relationships. This effort culminated in the selection of Venice as the site for the reconciliation of Alexander and Frederick. St. Mark’s Basilica was chosen as the perfect backdrop for the ceremony; although it was unfinished, the three grand portals were in place, creating a sort of triumphal arch that would frame the central figures, while the Evangelist himself would be an implied presence blessing the important event.
On a beautiful summer day at dawn, the pope arrived at the basilica and took his place on the high throne that had been constructed for him in front of the main entrance. The emperor followed. His famous red hair was going white, but he wore a brilliant cloak in his signature color, which he shed before making his final approach to the throne on his knees until, finally, he lay prostrate before Alexander, kissing his feet. The pope raised him, embraced him, and seated him on the adjoining throne.
The conflict between them had been long, bloody and personal. But in the end, the prevailing sense seems to have been relief. Later chroniclers insinuated that Alexander and Frederick had whispered insults to each other during the ritual of abasement, but contemporary records suggest this was a genuinely joyful occasion. The pontiff invoked the biblical story of the Prodigal Son, giving Frederick a fatted calf and telling him, “It is meet that we should make merry and be glad, for my son was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”99
Norwich, A History of Venice, 114.
The two certainly seem to have been in no hurry to get away from each other, as both remained in Venice well into the fall, along with their noble and wealthy retinues. This extended visit was a welcome economic windfall for the city, as was the recognition that Venice’s unique geographic and political situation made it an appropriate location for such a delicate diplomatic mission. An eyewitness noted as much, declaring that Venice was “subject to God alone . . . a place where the courage and authority of the citizens could preserve peace between the partisans of each side and ensure that no discord or sedition, deliberate or involuntary, should arise.”1010
De Pace Veneta Relatio, as translated in Norwich, A History of Venice, 117.
Canaletto, Festa della Sensa, c. 1729–30.
While in Venice, Alexander III gave his papal blessing to a civic ritual that had more than a passing affiliation with the pagan past. Every year, on the Feast of the Ascension (the Thursday after Easter), the doge would embark from his palace in a special galley called the Bucentaur, row out into the Grand Canal, and throw a golden ring into the water, thereby symbolically marrying the sea. This Festa della Sensa underscored the special maritime nature of the city, and with Alexander’s blessing it became fully legitimate in the eyes of the church. Through the centuries, generations of splendid vessels were built for this purpose.
Doge Ziani directed the reorganization of Venice’s urban fabric as the city grew in size and beauty, concentrating on the area around St. Mark’s Basilica, which had become the undisputed heart of the city. He moved the loud and dirty shipyards to an outlying area and cleared out the space leading up from the Grand Canal to the church, making a suitable stage for civic ritual. He rebuilt the Doge’s Palace. And he continued to refine and decorate St. Mark’s.
The basic structure had been completed about a century earlier, and a program to cover the interior with mosaics had been initiated after the Evangelist’s body made a dramatic reappearance in 1094. The story went that the treasured relic had been hidden away during the fire of 976 and the three people who knew the hiding place had all died before revealing it. As the renovation work was finished, the people of Venice prayed for three days for their saint to be restored to them. At last there was a rumbling in the old masonry and the Evangelist miraculously tumbled out of a column where, the experts claimed, he had been hidden for a century.
Venetians vied with each other for the honor of ornamenting the basilica, bringing home rich treasures from successful commercial voyages. Brightly colored carved marbles, gold and gemstones poured into St. Mark’s, where they were incorporated into the ever more ornate interior or displayed in the treasury.
Craftsmen came on the ships too, most notably a whole school of mosaicists from Constantinople. This ancient art, originally created from naturally colored pebbles to decorate floors in Greece, had been widely popular in the Roman Empire and was used to adorn the first imperial Christian churches with glittering scenes of the celestial realm. The mosaics in St. Mark’s were made of small tiles, or tesseræ, which were specially manufactured pieces of glass backed by thin layers of colored material, including gold, lapis and porphyry. The result was both brilliant and durable, albeit expensive and labor-intensive to produce. The Byzantine artists who settled in Venice established a flourishing community that would survive for centuries, creating and then extensively restoring the mosaics inch by inch.
More than an acre of decorated surface coated the interior of the church, telling the long story of Christianity from the Creation and the Garden of Eden to the lives of the saints, including the miraculous translation of Saint Mark from Alexandria to Venice. Although such representations are sometimes described as the “Bibles of the illiterate,” this was not the original purpose of the mosaics. Certainly an attentive viewer who knew where to start and finish could learn a great deal from them, even if the figures high up in the domes might be obscure. But the main function of the mosaics, and the church as a whole, was to celebrate the remarkable wealth and influence that this most unlikely of cities had gained under the Evangelist’s protection.
St. Mark’s Basilica: September 8, 1202
Enrico Dandolo could no longer see the golden glow created by the bright sunshine reflecting from the water outside and bouncing off the polished surfaces of the mosaics. His vision was long gone. Two acolytes guided the elderly doge up the aisle of the basilica, but he still carried himself with authority in the distinctive headgear of his office: a white linen skullcap surmounted by a pointed hat known as the corno ducale, which made him seem even taller.
St. Mark’s Basilica was packed with the usual Venetian aristocrats, supplemented by French knights who had thronged to the city anticipating an expedition to the Holy Land. Inspired by the charismatic and energetic Pope Innocent III, the Fourth Crusade had been planned as another attempt to wrest Jerusalem away from Saladin. By the time the company got to Venice, their resources were already spent and the project seemed doomed, until Dandolo offered his support. But no one anticipated what the doge would do that day.
Interior, St. Mark’s Basilica.
Dandolo climbed into the elevated pulpit under the central dome and began speaking to the assembly. “My lords,” he said, quietly at first, “you are joined with the finest men in the world in the most noble
