A Catholic History of Venice

Christianity reached the Veneto through Aquileia, the Roman capital of the region. Venetian and Aquileian tradition says Saint Mark preached there and sent Saint Hermagoras to Rome to be its first bishop. The basilica's own history page calls the Aquileian mission a tradition, while treating Mark's work in Alexandria as historical. The same tradition says that an angel told Mark on the lagoon, "Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus," meaning "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist." Those words are on the open book held by the winged lion of Venice, and the story explains why a body would one day rest here.

Huns, and then the Lombards in 568, drove people from Aquileia, Altino, Padua and Oderzo into the lagoon, and their bishops came with them. Venice conventionally dates its own foundation to March 25, 421. Historians treat the year as a convention, but the Patriarch repeated the date when Pope Francis visited in 2024.