St Mark's Cathedral, Venice, the most important church in the city since Early Christian times but the cathedral of Venice only since 1807. The body of the apostle St Mark, stolen from its resting place in Alexandria, was brought to Venice in 828 and subsequently interred in the new church. Virtually nothing of the 9th-century church survives; it was badly damaged by fire in 976 and only temporarily repaired. The present basilica was begun c. 1050 and completed in the 1090s.