The current St. Mark's Basilica in Venice was consecrated in 1094, following a construction project that had begun in 1063. The church was built on the foundations of earlier structures dating to 828 CE and was intended to house the supposed relics of St. Mark the Evangelist, which Venetian merchants had stolen from Alexandria. The basilica's Byzantine-inspired design, with its five domes and golden mosaics, became a symbol of Venetian wealth and power.

St. Mark's Basilica is a central landmark in the Venetian settings of countless poems, from the canzoniere of Petrarch to the Romantic works of Byron and Shelley. The basilica's mosaics and its role in Venetian civic identity have inspired twentieth-century poets such as Ezra Pound, who used Venice and its basilica as touchstones in his Cantos for reflections on culture, commerce, and spirituality.