Legend names Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello as the merchants who spirited Saint Mark’s body out of Alexandria, but hardly anything else is known about them. They are pictured in mosaic on the dome of Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice.

Caliph Al-Ma’mun came to power in Baghdad following a brief war and a long insurgency – an irony that will not be lost on modern readers. His father Harun Al-Rashid is featured in a very early work of historical fantasy, 1001 Arabian Nights. Caliph Al-Ma’mun was a progressive leader who worked to preserve the scientific knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Much of the Western classical tradition survived because Al-Ma’mun had the works translated into Arabic for his libraries.

Byzantine Emperor Michael II was a former army general who murdered his way to the throne. He struggled throughout his reign with his own bureaucracy of eunuchs, who regarded him an illiterate crypto-Jew. Besides numerous military defeats at the hands of the Caliph, Michael’s reign was troubled by a serious religious controversy over icons. I present Michael as a frustrated and ruthless man who sees Saint Mark’s body as a chance to solve all of his problems at once.

 
Doge Giustiniano Partecipazio, like Al-Ma’mun, gained his throne after a war with his own brother. He took advantage of Venice’s special position of neutrality to build his city as a commercial and later military empire. Shortly after Saint Mark’s body arrived in Venice, Giustiniano began construction on a basilica dedicated to the saint. That structure was destroyed in the tenth century, and replaced with the present Basilica di San Marco in 1094. Giustiniano built up Venice’s military forces, and in 828 allied with Emperor Michael in an attempt to drive the Muslims out of Sicily.

 
The future Pope Gregory IV was a friend of Roman nobility. He confirmed the alliance between the Catholic Church and the Frankish Empire by acknowledging the supremacy of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne. During the events of Saint Mark’s Body the previous Pope has died and a pro-Frankish faction is engineering Gregory’s election. Ironically, Gregory’s position at the time was Cardinal-Priest of Saint Mark’s Basilica in Rome.