and its deposition in the Ducal Chapel, perhaps not yet completed,
occasioned the investiture of that chapel with all possible splendor.
St. Theodore was deposed from his patronship, and his church destroyed,
to make room for the aggrandizement of the one attached to the Ducal
Palace, and thenceforward known as "St. Mark's." [Footnote: In the
Chronicles, "Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella."]

SECTION V. This first church was however destroyed by fire, when the
Ducal Palace was burned in the revolt against Candiano, in 976. It was
partly rebuilt by his successor, Pietro Orseolo, on a larger scale; and
with the assistance of Byzantine architects, the fabric was carried on
under successive Doges for nearly a hundred years; the main building
being completed in 1071, but its incrustation with marble not till
considerably later. It was consecrated on the 8th of October, 1085,
[Footnote: "To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the
Protector St. Mark."--_Corner_, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the
reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have
consulted the best. The previous inscription once existing on the church
itself:

"Anno milleno transacto bisque trigeno
Desuper undecimo fuit facta primo,"

is no longer to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much
probability, to have perished "in qualche ristauro."] according to
Sansovino and the author of the "Chiesa Ducale di S. Marco," in 1094
according to Lazari, but certainly between 1084 and 1096, those years
being the limits of the reign of Vital Falier; I incline to the
supposition that it was soon after his accession to the throne in 1085,
though Sansovino writes, by mistake, Ordelafo instead of Vital Falier.