Fire-breathing is the unifying theme of Murano’s medieval church, with its 12th-century gilded glass Madonna apse mosaic made in Murano’s fornaci (furnaces) and the bones of a dragon hanging behind the altar. According to legend, these are the bones of a beast slayed by San Donato, whose mortal remains also rest here. The other masterpiece here is underfoot: a Byzantine-style 12th-century mosaic pavement of waving geometric patterns and peacocks rendered in porphyry, serpentine and other precious stones.
