Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 Angelo Paktecipazo, or Badoer (811-27), the first Doge of the new era, set about converting the islands of Rialto into a worthy capital. He built the first Ducal Palace, doubtless a rugged structure, on the site where the present one stands. He appointed Pietro Tradonico to be chief architect for the whole city, Lorenzo Alimpato to direct the digging of canals and the raising of embankments, and Nicolo Ardisonio to devise means for protecting the lidi from being washed away. Angelo has justly been called the founder of Venice, for by him and by these three assistants were traced the outlines of the magic city which we know. Most of the little islands forming the Rialtine group were already inhabited; but he joined them by bridges and united them under a single administration. Angelo had been dead only a few months when the body of St. Mark was brought to Venice (January 31, 828) by two merchants, — Rustico of Torcello and Buonoof Malamocco, — who had escaped with it, in marvelous fashion, from Alexandria. We can hardly realize what it meant in that age for a city to have a patron saint. He served it not only as a constant protector in its daily affairs, but also as an intercessor before the Almighty. By its thinly disguised polytheistic system of saints, angels and archangels, the Roman Church perpetuated the ancient pagan worship of minor gods and local deities — of beings sufficiently near the human to be within the reach of the average understanding. Between the worshiper and God, the Church has always interposed either some celestial intercessor or a living priest, and has dedicated its houses of worship not to God but to his saints. The patron of a city or a state was, therefore, of the highest religious importance. In St. Mark...