A while ago I had another version of the Saint Mark’s Body website containing detailed character descriptions and excerpts from the yet-unpublished novel. Someone must have read them while looking up information on the legendary/historical person, Buono da Malamocco. This helpful person then updated the Italian Wikipedia article on Buono, filling in many of the unknowns about him and the theft of Saint Mark’s body with inventions from my novel!
Here’s my Babelfish- assisted translation. I’ve highlighted all the parts which were completely made up by me - including Rustico’s given name and the name of their ship. The article writer made a couple of mistakes even cribbing my made-up history: Buono has three daughters in 827 and no sons, and he has assumed that “ben Moische” is Elihu and Rebekah’s surname, when actually it means “Son of Moses” and applies to Elihu only.
Color Coding:
RED: I made it up completely.
BLUE: I put it in the book as an educated guess: I made it up but it could well have been true.
BLACK: comes from the legends I heard from other sources
[ ] means I’m not too sure of the word.
“Buono” da Malamocco (Metamauco) Legendary Personage
Named Tribune by the tenth doge of Venice Agnello Partecipazio after the war of 810 against the Frank Pepin, king of Italy, was made spokesman for the people and guarantor of social justice. The tribunes were inviolable in the times of the Empire.
The house of Buono was, as was traditional, open day and night to listen to every kind of [problem]. For the joy of his wife Magdalena wife and their three sons, when Buono was not at sea, he would take his station very seriously and remained seated on a simple bench for hours to listen to his [concittadini].
Buono da Metamauco was with then-Tribune Agnello Partecipazio and Andrea the Torcellan called “Rustico”, on one of the Venetian galleys that faced victoriously, in a brave and hopeless battle, that took place not far from the Rialtine islands, against Pepin’s ships that entered the lagoon in 810 in lagoon with a fleet from neighboring Ravenna.
He then remained in the seafaring world, arming a ship the “San Nicola” and travelling as her captain, [among] the Venetian merchants, throughout the Mediterranean and especially the Eastern routes to Alexandria and Constantinople.
Everyone knew that only the expert Venetians could hope to navigate in winter in the open sea and without stars.
The “San Nicola” had a crew of companions: a former carpenter who became a skillful merchant “Rustico” Andrea of Torcello, who since 822 was also his partner, and even first mate of the San Nicola and an old Hebrew doctor who fights with both against the Franks, Elihu ben Moische.
In November 827 on orders of the new doge Giustiniano Partecipazio, contrary to the decree of the Byzantine Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813 - 820) and ratified by the same Duke Giustiniano, that forbade commerce with the Arabs, [setting out with] the fleet of 10 ships, with which they were partners, in the first days of December 827 from Venice, berthing in the port of Alexandria, Egypt, with the mission to steal to the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist.
They successfully hid the bones of the saint within a cask filled with cuts of pork and cauliflowers, thus to avoid the Muslim customs controls, who with the cry “Kinzir - Kinzir” (pig, pig) went away spitting.
They arrived in Venice in glory, [traditionally] on 31 January 828.
Doge Giustinian paid Buono and Rustico 100 pounds of silver with which the two heroes, according to tradtion, finished the construction of the oratory of the church of Saint Mark in Torcello.
Crew of the San Nicola:
Buono da Malamocco (Captain) Andrea da Torcello, “Rustico” (First Mate) Pietro, (Second Mate) Giacomo (sailor) Emilio (sailor) Giuseppe “Giusto” Baseio (Doge’s official) Brutus, “Brutto” (soldier) Hubert called “Franco” du Gascoyne (soldier) Elihu ben Moische (Physician) Rebekah (apprentice physician) Nikos (sailor) Medes (sailor)
I’m still chuckling over this whole business.
You must be so tickled.
I certainly am! Unfortunately the writer of the wiki article must not be reading Buono’s Tale here, or else he’d have mentioned that Tribune Buono is also a failed monk who goes on the occasional bender.