No doubt you’ve heard of the Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square) of Venice, which Napolean called ‘the drawing room of Europe’. You’re probably also familiar with the Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco (St Mark’s Basilica), which lies at the piazza’s eastern end and is a stunning example of Italian Byzantine architecture. After all, these are world-renowned, and very popular with tourists visiting the city. But do you know why these great works of architecture are dedicated to this saint?

The saint in question is Mark, one of Christ’s disciples and author of the gospel of Mark. Given that Mark founded the Church of Alexandria (today part of the Coptic Orthodox Church), you may expect that it is the Egyptians who are most connected to this saint. Indeed, in Alexandria you find the St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, and in Cairo the St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, both shrines to Mark. But Venetians have their own special relationship with this saint – and the reason comes down to a matter of body snatching!

St Mark died in Alexandria (he was martyred there, having been dragged through the streets), and his remains were interred in the city. But in 828 Venetian merchants stole what remained of Mark. Supposedly, they buried his bones beneath pork and cabbage leaves, knowing that anyone searching their vessel would likely be Muslim and therefore reluctant to touch the pork and probe beneath.

Back in Venice, the patron saint to that point, St Theodore, was pushed aside in favour of Mark, and the Doge set men to work at once building a church fit to house the remains of a disciple of Christ. Come 1063, a new, better basilica was commissioned, but disaster struck: St Mark’s bones were missing! Legend tells that it was Mark himself who pointed the way to his remains by extending his arm from a pillar. He was laid to rest in a sarcophagus in the basilica.

Some believe that part of St Mark’s skeleton (the skull) remains in Alexandria’s St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, and other parts in the Cairo church. But certainly most, if not all, are in Venice. It is hoped that will continue to be the case…

Have you followed the story currently ‘hot on the presses’ in Britain about the remains of King Richard III? Since the bones of the monarch, who died in 1485, were discovered beneath a council car park, Westminster Abbey, York Minster and Leicester Cathedral have battled for the right to provide the final resting place of the king in a row that the Telegraph reports ‘is threatening to develop into a drama of Shakespearean proportions’.

So although the body-snatching element of St Mark’s tale is not quite in keeping with how one expects the earthly remains of a heavenly saint to be treated, at least his remains were not lost and buried under the concrete of a car park – and at least he can be at peace without people fighting over his remains.