ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on three saints – Mark, Isidore, and George – whose cults were periodically resuscitated by various merchant groups from the ninth to the sixteenth century. Only patricians could lead the state-owned galleys that sailed across the Mediterranean at regular intervals, elite families exercised monopolies on the sale of certain commodities, and patricians served as the diplomats and ambassadors who negotiated commercial treaties with foreign powers to their own benefit. The cult of St. Mark from the outset addressed the interests of the doge and the city’s mercantile aristocracy in establishing a Venetian economic presence in the Mediterranean and integrating the Italian republic into the vibrant cultural and commercial exchange across the sea. In the challenging circumstances, Venice’s merchants – patrician, middle-class, and foreign – needed the saints more than ever to help the city triumph over a feared and seemingly invincible adversary, and the holy protectors were redeployed to demonstrate Venice’s continued centrality in international Mediterranean trade.
