page_title: Theodore the Martyr
section_title: Italy
hierarchical_section_title: Theodore the Martyr / Relics / Italy
caption_attribution_description: English&#x3a;&#32; Statue of St.Theodore in Piazzetta San Marco in VeniceFrançais&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; Statue de saint Théodore sur la Piazzetta San Marco à VeniseItaliano&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; Statua di San Teodoro in Piazzetta San Marco a Venezia
context_page_description: Theodore the Martyr was the name of a number of Christian saints. Two of the best known, Theodore of Amasea and Theodore Stratelates, were probably the same person. A variety of stories are told about Theodore the Martyr. Relics of Theodore the Martyr, including at least four bodies as well as body parts, were taken to Venice, where he is one of the patron saints, or to other places in Western Europe.
context_section_description: In 1100 the remains of Saint Theodore the Martyr were stolen from Myra in Asia Minor and taken to Venice, along with the body of Saint Nicholas of Myra and his uncle, also Nicholas.
  This occurred during an expedition to the Holy Land of about 200 ships  dispatched by the Doge Vitale Michiel of Venice under the spiritual leadership of Enrico Contarini, the Bishop of Olivolo.
  Theodore the Martyr became one of the four tutelary guardians of Venice, along with the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary and Saint Mark the Evangelist. However, Saint Theodore was often used as a symbol of Venice's affiliation to Byzantium and as Venice became more independent, Saint Theodore's presence waned in the city.
  In 1257 Jacopo Dauro raided Mesembria on the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea, and took the headless body of Saint Theodore the Martyr from its church of Saint Sophia. The saint was headless because the Emperor Licinius had decapitated him after he had slain a dragon. A relative of Jacopo, Marco Dauro, took the body to Venice where he placed it in the church of San Salvador. Saint Theodore and the dragon were later commemorated in a statue on top of his column in Venice.
  The Irish friar Simon Fitz-Simon passed through Venice in 1323 on his way to the Holy Land, and listed Theodore the Martyr among the bodies of saints that lay in the city, "whole and uncorrupted".
  The Jesuit Richa in his History of the Churches of Florence recorded that at the Convent of our Lady of the Murate there was a rib of St. Theodore the Martyr, which had been mislaid and forgotten, but which the saint revealed in a vision to Sister Maria of Scarperia. 
  The chronicle of the convent included many wonderful events associated with this relic.
  An 1872 account tells of a small church of Theodore the Martyr at the foot of Palatine Hill in Rome. 
  Mothers would bring their children to the church to kiss the saint's relic.
caption: Statue of St Theodore on western column in Piazzetta in Venice
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