Saint Mark's Basilica

This guide to Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice opens in Alexandria in 828, where two Venetian traders, Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, sheltering from a storm, decide to steal the evangelist's body from its guarded tomb rather than see the church torn down for stone. It follows the swap they arranged with the tomb's keepers and the cargo they packed to get the relic past customs, plus the storm that legend says nearly sank the ship on the way home. The basilica was built to house what they brought back, and the guide turns next to how the relic was later lost somewhere inside the building's own walls for generations.