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Principal church of the
town, was the place where the Doges were ordained (it was
dogal chapel up to 1807, the year when it was elected
cathedral of Venice, place previously occupied by S.
Pietro in Castle). It was built in the ninth century: in
the 829 began the works for the construction for
welcoming St. Mark's the Evangelist mortal remains, stealed the
preceding year from Alexandria of Egypt, for hand of some
Venetian merchants. So the church replaced the one
consecrated to St. Teodoro, who was the first patron of
Venice. It was object of renovations and new
realizations, always on the original foundations but it
always maintained the characteristic profile of the
Byzantine church, with Greek cross plan and central dome
edged with others four round form domes that end with
bulbiform little domes. During the sixteenth century, the
Sansovino consolidated its structure, in the seventeenth
century there were some inner interventions for the
completion of the altars of the Sacrament and of the
Madonna Nicopeia; in the eighteenth century some mosaics
were remade. Just gold bottom mosaics are the biggest
wealth of the Basilica, both for their extension, they in
fact spread on a surface of 4.240 square meters, and for
the antiquity of their dating. |