Another legend of the benefits which Saint Mark loved to confer on his people is perpetuated by a wonderful picture of Jacopo Tintoretto's in the same collection. A poor slave who persisted in worshipping at the shrine of Saint Mark had for this reason been condemned to torture by his cruel master. Just when the brutal executioners were about to begin their fiendish cruelties, the saint descends like a whirlwind; the executioners are confounded, their instruments are broken, and the slave is free!
Another miracle of Saint Mark's is connected with the preservation of his own relics. In 976 a fire destroyed a large portion of San Marco; and when the repairs were completed, the place in which the body of the saint had rested was forgotten. This was a true sorrow to the Doge and the people, and at last they determined to keep a fast and pray God to show them what no man could tell. The 25th of June was appointed for this fast, and a solemn procession was made; and while in the cathedral all were fervently imploring the manifestation of their treasure, with great joy they beheld a pillar shake, and then fall to the ground, disclosing the bronze chest in which the body of the Evangelist was preserved. These sacred relics are now beneath the high altar in San Marco, as is recorded on a marble slab at the back of the altar.
Sanudo gives a curious account of the acquisition of another saint. He says that in 992 Pietro Barbolano, together with Pietro Giustiniani, was sent to Constantinople on a diplomatic mission. There the future Doge saw the remains of Saint Saba, and was seized with the desire to obtain them for his beloved Venice. At length Barbolano, by one argument and another, prevailed on the guardians of the saint to sell her to him; but when the night came on which he was leaving the Golden Horn, these men showed signs of breaking their bargain. The rain was falling in torrents, and the Greeks construed this as an omen that they ought not to permit the saint to undertake the voyage.
But Barbolano had with him his two sons and several servants, and he quickly ended the matter by ordering the chest which contained the sacred relics to be taken to his ship, which was soon under way, and made a prosperous voyage to Venice, where Barbolano ordered the chest to be put in a gondola and taken to his house, next the Church of San Antonino at Castello. But when this was attempted, the chest had become so heavy that it could not be lifted; and at the same moment the bell of the Campanile began to toll, with no visible agency, and with such violence as threatened destruction to the tower itself.
This caused many people to gather in the Piazza; and in their midst Barbolano threw himself on his knees and exclaimed, "We will carry it to the church, for the Saviour of Men has declared his will that this body shall be placed in the shrine dedicated to Saint Antonino." It is not easy to understand how the devout Barbolano knew all this; but apparently he was right, for the chest was now as light as before, and was placed in a gondola, taken to the church, and deposited on the altar. Then the bell ceased ringing, and a dove with miraculously white plumage hovered over the relics while a Te Deum and other services were celebrated, and then vanished.
A new altar was erected for Saint Saba, near that of San Antonino, and the bones were placed in the reliquary of the church; and on the evening of that day, as the curé of San Antonino walked in his garden, he "marvelled not a little to observe among the flowers a rose of surpassing beauty; and the good man hesitated not to associate the fair vision with the miracle of which he had just been a witness, looking upon it as a symbol of that yet fairer flower which had been so recently transplanted from the soil of Constantinople to that of Venice."
It would seem strange that such a wonder-working saint should not frequently have proved her power in the midst of the great events of the Republic, and at times when miracles in behalf of the Venetians were sorely needed; but doubtless she soon felt that those of her sex did not assume power publicly in this City of the Sea, and whatever she did was done sub rosa.
The same Michieli and Contarini who had brought to Venice the relics of Saint Theodore were extremely fortunate in their relic-hunting; for they also brought home the due corpi di San Niccolo, the greater and the less, and deposited them in the Church of San Niccolo del Lido. Saint Nicholas of Myra is a protector against robbers and violence, and is a favorite saint with sailors, travellers, and merchants. He is also a patron of poor maidens, of children, and especially of school-boys, and the legends of his goodness and kindly acts are innumerable; in fact, he is so celebrated and so important a saint that it is all the more grievous to recount that the majority of the people who have lived since the ninth century who have understood these matters and known all about saints do not allow that the relics of this sainted Lycian are, or ever were, in Venice, and Bari is the happy place wherein he is said to repose. Thus it happens that he is often called San Niccolo di Bari; but I should not like to speak of him thus to any of my devout Venetian friends, least of all to my good gondolier.
Another Venetian fleet which had been to the aid of Baldwin in the Holy Land, when returning, about 1125, obtained the body of Saint Isidore at Chios, and that of Saint Donato at Cephalonia. These were brought to Venice at the same time with the "great stone which had stood near one of the gates of Tyre since the time when Our Lord, weary after a journey, sat down to rest upon it," as well as vast treasures of jewels, gold and silver, embroideries and carpets, and all the splendid fabrics of the Orient. But to the reverent Christian all else paled before the bodies of the saints. Saint Isidore is believed now to rest in his own chapel in San Marco. San Donato, the once saintly Bishop of Evorea, was given by Domenico Michieli to Murano, and the Church of Santa Maria soon assumed his name. To Torcello was brought Saint Fosca, a noble virgin who had been martyred under the persecution of Decius at Ravenna; and her church was second only to the Cathedral of Torcello. When to this list of saints we add the bodies of San Pancrazio and Santa Sabina, which were given to the Abbess of San Zaccaria by Pope Benedict III., and Saint Christina, the patron of the Venetian States, and likewise Saint Justina of Padua,—another patron of Venice who is represented in Venetian costume, with the city or the cathedral of San Marco in the distance,—we may call Venice the City of Saints as justly as the City of the Sea.
SAN LAZZARO.