Saint Mark is said to be buried behind the main alter. The church holds 2 acres and five domes of magnificent gold Byzantine mosaic art. During Venice's prime time, as shippers of goods and soldiers to the Holy Land, she was amassing lots of gold and she used it, in part to build this cathedral over 350 years. There is more gold here than at St. Peter's. Above the entry to the main altar are twelve stunning statues, possibly of wood, of the twelve apostles it was a stunning combination of Middle Eastern and Roman architecture.
The mosaic marble floor was buckling into waves of marble mosaics under the swelling ocean tide over the last nine centuries, but there is not a crack in the marble.
Last weeks high tide caused pilgrims to stand in clod water eighteen inches deep as they waited to enter the church. Venice is in BIG trouble as a result of global warming and rising tides. I don't think pilgrims will even be blest to see St. Marc's in a hundred years.
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