Theodore
was the first patron of the city; nor can he yet be considered as
having entirely abdicated his early right, as his statue, standing on a
crocodile, still companions the winged lion on the opposing pillar of
the piazzetta. A church erected to this Saint is said to have occupied,
before the ninth century, the site of St. Mark's; and the traveller,
dazzled by the brilliancy of the great square, ought not to leave it
without endeavouring to imagine its aspect in that early time, when it
was a green field cloister-like and quiet,[147] divided by a small canal,
with a line of trees on each side; and extending between the two
churches of St. Theodore and St. Gemanium, as the little piazza of
Torcello lies between its "palazzo" and cathedral.
But in the year 813, when the seat of government was finally removed to
the Rialto, a Ducal Palace, built on the spot where the present one
stands, with a Ducal Chapel beside it,[148] gave a very different
character to the Square of St. Mark; and fifteen years later, the
acquisition of the body of the Saint, and its deposition in the Ducal
Chapel, perhaps not yet completed, occasioned the investiture of that
chapel with all possible splendour. St. Theodore was deposed from his
patronship, and his church destroyed, to make room for the
aggrandizement of the one attached to the Ducal Palace, and
thenceforward known as "St.
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