Am I first on these historical people?

My story in Saint Mark's Body includes several historical figures whom I have not come across in any work of fiction. I would LOVE to be able to tell agents and publishers my novel is the first to present these interesting people as characters.

If anyone can point me to a work of fiction that features one or more of these people I would be grateful. If no one can I will be even MORE grateful... and quite possibly the very happy recipient of a lucrative publishing contract.

Thanks all for your help!

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BUONO da MALAMOCCO and RUSTICO da TORCELLO ... Venetian merchants who according to legend retrieved Mark's body from Egypt. I never found out anything about these two other than their names, and that Buono was sometimes referred to as "Tribunus" in the histories.

DOGE GIUSTINIANO PARTECIPAZIO ... the man in charge of Venice at the time. He died in 828, and his will survives as one of the source records of the period.

(the future) POPE GREGORY IV ... in late 827 the Papal throne is empty, and Gregory is... get this ... Cardinal-Priest of Saint Mark's Basilica in Rome! (It all falls together...) His election to the Holy See was engineered by a pro-Frankish faction of the Church.

CALIPH AL-MA'MUN ... if anyone has been written about it's him. Son of legendary Caliph Harun Al-Rashid, who is himself a main character in a very old work of fantasy, 1001 Arabian Nights. Al-Ma'mun was a very progressive and influential Caliph who sponsored scholarship and preserved much knowledge lost by the Christan West.

donroc said:

Love those names.

Click to expand...

Me too Don ... having just the names to go by made it an interesting exercise to develop the characters, especially since both names are really adjectives. So I made Buono a "good" man and gave Rustico a background as a shepherd. Proceeding on the assumption that nicknames were common, I gave a couple other crew members adjective names as well.