Paolo Lucio Anafesto

Paoluccio or Paolo Lucio Anafesto (Latin Anafestus Paulucius or Paulicius) was the reputed first doge of Venice. A noble of Eraclea, then the primary city of the region, he was elected in 697 as an official over the entire lagoon that surrounded Venice, both to put an end to the conflicts between the various tribunes who until then had governed the various parts, and to coordinate the defense against the Lombards and the Slavs who were encroaching on the settlements. However, his existence is uncorroborated by any source before the 11th century though he was probably not entirely legendary. According to John Julius Norwich, Paolo Lucio Anafesto was actually Exarch Paul. Moreover, Paul's magister militum had the same first name as Paoluccio's reputed successor, Marcellus Tegallianus, casting doubt on the authenticity of that doge as well.[1]

Marcello Tegalliano
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia According to tradition, Marcello Tegalliano (Latin Marcellus) was the second Doge of Venice (717726). However, John Julius Norwich has argued that the first doge, Paoluccio Anafesto, was actually Paul, Exarch of Ravenna, and that Marcellus was actually his magister militum of the same first name.[1]

Orso Ipato
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Orso Ipato (Latin Ursus) was the third traditional Doge of Venice (726742) and the first historically known. Sometime in the early 8th century, he was elected to lead the Venetians and granted the title of dux or duke, which has morphed in the Venetian dialect into doge. Orso himself came from Heraclea. He was eventually recognised by the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, who gave him the title hypatos. His descendants surnamed themselves Ipato on the basis of this imperial honorific. The Orseolo family was also descended from him. After Orso's violent death (assassinated perhaps at the instigation of Eutychius, Exarch of Ravenna), there was an interregnum filled by four magistri militum before his son, Teodato, was elected as the second historical doge of Venice.

Domenico Leoni
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Domenico Leoni (lifedates unknown) was a Venetian statesman of Byzantine origin; he served as magister militum and Hypatus in 737.

Felice Cornicola
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Felice Cornicola was the ruler of Venice, Hypatus (Byzantine consul) of 738 and magister militum.

Teodato Ipato
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Theodatus Ursus) Teodato Ipato (also Diodato or Deusdedit, Latin: Theodatus Ursus) was the doge of Venice after a brief interregnum following the death of his father, Orso Ipato, in 742. His surname is in fact the Byzantine title hypatos. Teodato moved the capital of the Venetiae from Heraclea to Malamocco. In 751, the Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna fell to the Lombards and Venice became the last Byzantine holdout in the north of Italy. In that same year, the Franks deposed their last Merovingian monarch, Childeric III, and elected the Carolingian Pepin the Short, a sworn ally of the pope and enemy of the Lombards. Venice became, at that point, a practically independent state. Teodato did not enjoy being at the head of it for long: he was deposed and blinded in 755 by Galla Gaulo, who usurped the ducal throne.

Gioviano Cepanico
Gioviano Cepanico, or Cepario, better known as Gioviano Ipato (dates unknown) was a Venetian general and statesman of Byzantine origin. He served as the magister militium of Venice in 741. During his reign he aided in the fight between Heraclia and Equilio.

Galla Gaulo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Galla Lupanio) Galla Lupanio or Gaulo was the fifth traditional Doge of Venice (755756). He was elected to the throne after deposing and blinding his predecessor, Teodato Ipato. Galla came to power at a time when there were three clear factions in Venice: the proByzantine faction supported a strong doge and close political relations with the Byzantine Empire, the pro-Frankish party supported moving closer to the new dynasty ruling in Gaul (enemies of Lombard and Greek), and the republican party wished to assert as much independence as possible and to remain outside of any larger power's sphere of influence. Galla was probably pro-Frankish. He barely survived on the throne for a year before he was

deposed, blinded, and exiled as Teodato had been. He is the traditional founder of the Barozzi family.

Domenico Monegario
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Domenico Monegario was the traditional sixth Doge of Venice (756764), elected with the support of the Lombard king Desiderius. However, in order to maintain necessary good relations with Byzantium and the Franks, two tribunes were elected annually to limit ducal power. Domenico came to resent these checks and was removed after eight years. During his reign, the transformation of the Venetians from fishermen to marine traders happened, with audacious travels as far as the Ionian Islands and the Levant. The art of shipbuilding was improved to make sturdier, faster ships. Venetian wealth increased via trade and the city took on its medieval character it held for the next millennium. When Pope Paul I demanded donations from Venice to the Holy See, the Doge Monegario was deposed, blinded, and exiled: like his two predecessors. The surname Monegario may derive from monegarium, that is, a friar or monk, or monetarium, that is, a minter.

Maurizio Galbaio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Maurizio Galbaio (Latin: Mauricius Galba) (died 787) was the seventh traditional, but fifth historical, Doge of Venice from 764 to his death. He was the first great doge, who reigned for 22 years and set Venice on its path to independence and success. Maurizio was raised to the dogeship at a time when two tribunes were being elected annually to check the power of the doge. His predecessor had been from a pro-Lombard faction, but Maurizio was a wealthy man from pro-Byzantine Heraclea. He opposed both the strong republican faction, which supported moving towards de facto independence, and the proFrankish and pro-Lombard factions. He received the titles of magister militum and hypatos from the Emperor Leo IV.[1] The Lombard king Desiderius, in light of the alliance between the papacy and the Frankish king Charlemagne and the strong clerical support for Frankish hegemony in Venice, ravaged the states of the church and Istria, even capturing the doge's son Giovanni. Through the pope, Maurizio sent ambassadors to Charlemagne and his son was released. Maurizio then made the first of many subsequent attempts to create a hereditary dogeship when, in 778, he had his son made a second doge. Maurizio obtained the consent of the emperor of the East for this last act. During Maurizio's final eleven years, the Venetians expanded permanently to the Rialto islands. On the little island of Olivolo (now Castello), he reconsecrated the church of SS Bacchus and Sergius as that of St Peter. It was raised to episcopal status and was the cathedral

of Venice throughout the republican era. The low point of Maurizio's reign was the expulsion from the Pentapolis of Venetian traders for trading in slaves and eunuchs. Maurizio was indeed succeeded by his son on his death. His name, Galbaio, came from his reputed descent from the ancient Roman emperor Galba.

Giovanni Galbaio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Giovanni Galbaio was the eighth Doge of Venice (787804) according to tradition, but only the sixth historically verifiable one. He succeeded his father Maurizio Galbaio, who had associated him as doge in 778. The Byzantine emperor Leo IV the Khazar recognised his title in that year, though the attempt to set up a hereditary monarchy endangered Maurizio's own dogeship. Giovanni had been briefly held captive by the Lombard king Desiderius after a campaign in Istria, but his father, through the pope, sent ambassadors to Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, to petition for getting Giovanni's release. Upon his inheriting, without election, the full office of his father, he immediately began a vendetta against the patriarch of Grado, who represented the church and its opposition to the slave trade. Charlemagne, a dutiful son of the church and now king of Lombardy, supported the abolition of slavery in his domains and thus came to resent the Venetian commerce in the Adriatic. The patriarch, in the reign of Maurizio, had even instigated the expulsion and confiscation of goods of the Venetian merchants in the Pentapolis. Giovanni had the Empress Irene name his son Maurizio co-doge. Trying to counterinfluence the patriarch, Giovanni appointed his sixteen year-old nephew Christopher bishop of Olivolo. The patriarch refused to consecrate him, officially due to his age, but actually because of his anti-Frankish stances. Maurizio II was sent to attack Grado with a flotilla of ships. There the elderly patriarch was thrown to his death from the tower. The opposition to the Galbaii family fled to Treviso while the nephew of the patriarch, Fortunatus, was elected in his stead and immediately fled to the Frankish court. The opposition crystallised under the leadership of one Obelerio degli Antenori and returned to Venice. Giovanni, with Maurizio and Christopher, fled to Mantua in 803, where they all probably died. Obelerio succeeded them. The Galbaio family later returned to Venice and assumed the name of Querini.

Obelerio degli Antenori

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Obelerio degli Antenori (also Antenoreo) was the ninth traditional (seventh historical) Doge of Venice from 804 to 811. He was the son of Encagilio.

Already a tribune during the dogeship of Giovanni Galbaio, he and other Venetian proFrankish leaders fled to Treviso. There they elected Obelerio their leader and he led them back to Venice, from whence the Galbaii fled, and was elected doge at Malamocco. Obelerio immediately copied his predecessors and appointed as associate doge one of his relatives, his brother Beato. Soon the Antenori were out of favour and the feud between the various factions, the pro-Byzantine at Heraclea and the republican at Malamocco, had fired up. The exiled patriarch of Grado, Fortunatus, returned to Venice from the court of Charlemagne at Aachen and offered to put Venetia under the protection of the Franks if he was reinstated. Obelerio obliged him and happily recognised Frankish sovereignty in return for Frankish protection and legitimation. Obelerio and Beato did homage to Charlemagne in Aachen on Christmas Day 805. Obelerio even chose a Frankish bride, the first dogaressa. This act precipitated a war with Byzantium. In 809, a fleet landed in the Venetian lagoon and attacked a Frankish flotilla at Comacchio but was defeated. Obelerio and Beato then raised their other brother Valentino to the dogeship alongside them. This was the last straw and the people rose against them; they called in King Pepin of Italy. He besieged Venice, but only at the last minute did the Antenori try to save face by taking up arms against him. They were booted and Agnello Participazio, who had defended Venice from the beginning, was elected doge. Obelerio spent the next two decades in exile in Constantinople. He returned on the death of Giustiniano Participazio in 832 with a band of faithful men to reclaim the dogeship. He landed at Vigilia, near Malamocco, but the legitimate doge, Giovanni Participazio, razed the two cities and killed Obelerio, displaying his head in the market.

Agnello Participazio
Agnello Participazio (Angelo Particiaco, Latin: Agnellus Particiacus) was the tenth (traditional) or eighth (historical) Doge of Venice from 811 to 827. He was born to a rich merchant family in Heraclea and was one of the earliest settlers of the island of Rialto, which civitas Rivoalti became, under him, the civitas Venetiarum. In 810, the reigning doges, Obelerio, Beato, and Valentino, called in the king of Italy, Pepin, to support their tottering power. It was Agnello who took up the defence of the city during the subsequent siege of Pepin. After Pepin fled and the doges were exiled, Agnello was elected to the dogeship. His Rialtine house on the Campiello della Cason became the first doge's palace in Venetian history and he soon began expanding it in stone. His reign began on a happy note. By the Pax Nicephori, Venetia was retained by the Byzantine Empire and renounced by Charlemagne, but its practical independence was affirmed. Agnello began the minting of the first Venetian coinage. Agnello's reign is otherwise known for the birth of modern Venice: a city of canals and bridges, centred on the Rialto. Agnello turned his attention to land reclamation and refortification. He appointed a building commission of three men to oversee the work. Nicol Ardisonio was in charge of fortifying the lidi against the sea. Lorenzo Alimpato dug canals and reinforced the islands, preparing new sites for construction. Finally, the construction of newer and better edifices was given to Pietro Tradonico, a close relative of Agnello. Torcello, Burano, Heraclea, and Rialto were all rebuilt. Bridges were built, even across the Brenta and

the Grand Canal was born. Still, at this time, the few stone buildings were fortresses or churches. Agnello's latter years were plagued by family quarrels. His elder son, Giustiniano, was away in Constantinople and so a younger son, Giovanni was appointed as co-doge. When Giustiniano returned, he flew into a fury. Agnello appointed his third son, Agnello, co-doge and began to oppose Giustiniano, even besieging him in San Severo. Eventually, the proFrankish Giovanni was forced into exile at Zadar. Agnello was succeeded by his eldest son Giustiniano.

Giustiniano Participazio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Giustiniano Participazio (also Partecipazio or Particiaco, English Justinian, Latin: Agnellus Iustinianus Particiacus[1]) (died 829) was the eleventh (traditional) or ninth (historical) Doge of Venice briefly from 825 to his death. His four years on the ducal throne were very eventful. He was made hypatus and protosebastus[dubious discuss] by the Byzantine emperor Leo the Armenian.[2] Giustiniano was away in Constantinople when his father, the then-reigning Doge Agnello, appointed his younger brother Giovanni as co-doge. When Giustiniano returned, he flew into a fury. Agnello appointed his third son, also Agnello, co-doge and began to oppose Giustiniano, even besieging him in San Severo. Giustiniano gained the upper hand, however, and exiled his younger brother and succeeded his father as doge in 827. The Byzantine Emperor, Michael II, offered military support to Venice in return for a contingent of Venetians in his expedition to Aghlabid Sicily. The success of the expedition increased the prestige of the city. While the contest (fomented by Charlemagne and by Lothair I) between the patriarchs of Grado and Aquileia over the Istrian bishoprics continued, Giustiniano worked to increase the prestige of the Venetian church itself. Traditionally, Venice was first evangelised by Saint Mark himself and many Venetians made the pilgrimage to Mark's grave in Alexandria, Egypt. According to tradition, Giustiniano ordered merchants, Buono di Malamocco and Rustico di Torcello, to corrupt the Alexandrine monks which guarded the body of the evangelist and steal it away secretly to Venice. Hiding the body amongst some pork, the Venetian ship slipped through customs and sailed into Venice on 31 January 828 with the body of Saint Mark. Giustiniano began the construction of a ducal chapel dedicated to Saint Mark to house his remains: the first Basilica di San Marco in Venice. Giustiniano recalled his brother Giovanni from Constantinople, because he had no sons by his wife, and appointed him to continue the construction of the new church for Venice's new patron saint. Giovanni succeeded the aged Giustiniano on the latter's death the next year.

Giovanni I Participazio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giovanni I Participazio (or Particiaco) (died 837) was the tenth (historical) or twelfth (traditional) Doge of Venice from the death of his brother in 829 to his arrest and deposition in 836. His father, Agnello, had appointed him co-doge while his brother Giustiniano was away in Constantinople. When Giustiniano returned, Agnello was deposed and Giovanni, who was part of the pro-Frankish faction, exiled to Zara. Giovanni was recalled by his brother from Constantinople in 829 and appointed to succeed him. He was duly elected by the assembly and continued the work of Giustiniano in construction a new basilica for the body of Saint Mark. The rest of his reign was occupied by quarrels and problems, internal and external. The first problem was the return of Obelerio degli Antenori from Constantinople after twenty years of exile. He disembarked at Vigilia, near Malamocco, with a band of followers and laid claim to the dogeship. Malamocco and Vigilia declared for him and both were burned by Giovanni. Obelerio was killed and his head displayed to the people. A revolt in Venice itself placed one of the tribunes, Caroso, on the throne for less than six months, during which Giovanni, surprised by the participation of trusted family members in the rebellion, resided in refuge at the court of Lothair, King of the Lombards. Soon, the Participazio had removed Caroso and blinded him, recalling Giovanni to Venice. His dictatorial rule provoked an aristocratic reaction, led by the Mastalici, and one night in 836, an ambush was laid at the exit of the church of S. Pietro in Olivolo. They arrested him, tonsured him, and put him in the church at Grado.

Pietro Tradonico
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pietro Tradonico (Latin: Petrus Tradonicus) (died 13 September 864), an Istrian by birth, was the Doge of Venice from 836 to 864. He was, according to tradition, the thirteenth doge, though historically he is only the eleventh. His election broke the power of the Participazio. He was illiterate, and forced to sign all state documents with the signum manus. He was a warrior, not an administrator. He nominated his son Giovanni as co-doge, continuing the process begun a century earlier of establishing a hereditary dukedom and dynastic succession. All previous attempts had failed and this was no different: Giovanni predeceased his father. He fought the Saracens of Bari and Taranto, who had earlier defeated Venice in the Battle of Sansego, on an island south of Pola. He had to deal not only with Saracen pirates, but with Slavs as well. He led a large fleet against in 839 to punish the Narentines for raiding and slaughtering several Venetian traders returning from Benevento in 834835. He made peace with Duke Mislav of the Croats of Dalmatia and a Narentine prince by the name of Druak (Drosaico, Marianorum judice). His military assault on the Neretvians in 840 failed and he lost more than 100 men and had to return Venetia. The Neretvians continued to push against him and, in 846, breached Venice itself and raided the neighbouring lagoon city of Kaorle.

In 840, the Emperor Lothair I recognised the independence of Venice and its authority over the lagoon as far as acquas salsas, already recognised by Byzantium. From the latter he received the titles of spatharius and hypatus.

Orso I Participazio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Orso I Participazio (died 881) was the fourteenth (traditional) and twelfth (historical) Doge of Venice from 864 to his death. He was elected, probably by acclamation, immediately after the assassination of his predecessor, Pietro Tradonico. By the end of the year, the assassins were captured, convicted, and executed, probably beheaded. Orso continued like Tradonico to fight the pirates, Slavic or Saracen, which inhabited the Adriatic. He was aided by newly-constructed larger ships. Orso presented to the Byzantine emperor Basil I a bell for the basilica Hagia Sophia. He died a natural death and was succeeded by his son, Giovanni II.

Giovanni II Participazio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Giovanni II Participazio (or Particiaco) was the thirteenth (historical) or fifteenth (traditional) Doge of Venice after the death of his father, Orso I, in 881 until his resignation in 887. Prior to that, he co-ruled with his father. He was a nepotist intent on continuing the power of his own dynasty. He tried to obtain the government of Comacchio for his brother Badoaro and to this end sent him to the pope. However, Marinus, count of Comacchio, captured him and sent him back to Venice, where he soon died. Giovanni attacked and devastated Comacchio, but he could not hold it, because it was the pope's. In 883, Giovanni negotiated a favourable treaty with the Emperor Charles the Fat. Giovanni associated his brother Pietro in the dogeship, but he died. He then associated his brother Orso, but he refused to accept it until Giovanni became seriously ill. Then the Venetians elected Pietro Candiano doge and Giovanni retired to private life. He tried to reobtain the dogeship on the death of Candiano, but failed due to his poor health.

Pietro I Candiano
Pietro I Candiano (c. 842 18 September 887) was briefly the sixteenth Doge of Venice in 887. He followed Orso I Participazio and Giovanni II Participazio as Doge of Venice, elected to the throne at the side of the elderly, and beloved, Giovanni circa April 887. He launched a

military attempt against the Dalmatian Croat principality of Pagania, which was hostile to Venetia after 886. As soon as he became Doge, he advanced with a fleet of twelve galleys to the port of Makarska (Italian: Mokro), where he sank five Narentines ships. He landed near Mokro and advanced deeper inland, but the Narentines crushed his forces, killing him in open battle on 18 September 887.[1] He was the first Doge to die in a battle for La Serenissima (Italian for The Most Serene, referring to the Republic of Venice). Venetians start paying prince Branimir of Croatia (879892), the ruler of Littoral Croatia, an annual tribute for the right to travel and trade in the Croatian part of the Adriatic.[2] Giovanni briefly ruled Venice until a successor could be found for Candiano. It was Pietro Tribuno, his great-nephew. His son, Pietro II Candiano, also later became Doge.

Pietro Tribuno
Pietro Tribuno (died 912) was the Doge of Venice from 887 to his death. He was the son of Domenico Tribuno and Agnella, the niece of Pietro I Candiano, whom he succeeded as Doge following a brief period during which the elderly and infirm Giovanni II Participazio administered the city. Immediately after his succession, he began negotiations with the successors of Charles the Fat. In 888, he negotiated a treaty with Arnulf of Carinthia and again in 891. The first treaty secured for the jurisdiction over Venetian citizens abroad. The intent of this clause was to increase Venetian trade in the Carolingian Empire by extending to such merchants who did so trade the protection of their own laws. The economic benefits were immediate and the 890s saw growth in Venice's relatively new iron industry. Meanwhile, land reclamation continued apace. In 898, the Magyars invaded Venetia for the first time, but this raid turned out to be a precursor to something more permanent. In 899, the whole of Lombardy was overrun. The Magyars then turned on Venice. First Cittanova, Fine, and Equilo fell, and then Altino. Finally, advancing past Chioggia and Pellestrina towards Malamocco, the Magyars arrived at Albiola to meet a vast Venetian host under Tribuno awaiting them. The Magyars used small coracles for water crossings and these proved massively inefficient against the Venetian galleys. The Magyars were routed in the first great Venetian military victory since the defeat of Pepin of Italy almost a century prior. After the Magyar flight, Tribuno set to work improving the inner defences of the Rialto. He constructed a vast wall from eastern Olivolo to the Riva degli Schiavoni and thence to S. Maria Zobenigo. He also stretched a gigantic chain across the Grand Canal from S. Gregorio on Dorsoduro to a site now occupied by the Palazzo Gaggia. According to the chronicler John the Deacon, writing a century later, with the construction of this wall Venice became a civitas, often translated "city;" an event marking a turning point in Venetian history. Tribuno died in 912 and was buried in S. Zaccaria. He was succeeded by Orso II Participazio.

Orso II Participazio
Orso II Participazio (died 932) was the Doge of Venice from 912 to 932.

In 912 he was kidnapped in the Adriatic by a Serb prince of Zachlumia by the name of Mihailo Vievi while returning with the Doge's son from an official visit to Constantinople. Bulgaria was at war with Byzantium, the sovereign of Venice, so the coastal prince dispatched him to Emperor Simeon of Bulgaria, hoping he would push off Petar Gojnikovi's domination in the area. He was the eighteenth doge of the Republic of Venice, by tradition (historically, he was the sixteenth). He was elected by the popular assembly. It seems that he was not related to the Participazio family that had already given many dogi to the city. (There was a prior Orso II Participazio who vied for Dogeship in about 887 but appears to have been entirely unrelated.) As soon as elected, he sent his son Pietro to Constantinople in order to re-establish the relationships with the emperor, which his predecessors had neglected; Pietro was named protospatario. The Adriatic was still plagued with Dalmatian, Saracen, and Narentine pirates, but the Doge took no action. He was proclaimed Baduario in Constantinople; his family took this title and modified it, over time, to Badoer (pronounced Bador), which became a prominent name among successive generations of Veneziana nobility. Under his leadership, Venice acquired a mint. In 932, he withdrew to the monastery of Saint Felice in Ammiana, where he led a monastic life until his death. He was buried there. His portrait is placed in the church of the Madonna of the Garden.

Pietro II Candiano
Pietro II Candiano (c. 872 939) was the nineteenth Doge of Venice between 932 and 939. He followed his father, Pietro I Candiano (887), Pietro Tribuno (888912), and Orso II Participazio (912932) to become Doge of Venice in 932. He began the Venetian policy of expansion on the mainland after 932. Candiano II began a bitter economic blockading war against Istria early in his rule. He burnt Venice's neighbor and potential rival, Comacchio, to the ground following a trifling diplomatic incident. He married Arcielda Candiano. He was succeeded as Doge by his son, Pietro III Candiano.

Pietro Participazio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pietro Badoer Participazio (939942) was, by tradition, the twentieth doge of the Republic of Venice. He was son of the eighteenth doge Orso II Participazio. It seems that during his reign he did nothing worthy of note; he died three years after his election and was buried in the Felice church Saint di Ammiana, where his father was buried before him.

Pietro III Candiano

Pietro III Candiano was the Doge of Venice from 942 until 959. In 948 he led a fleet of 33 Galleys to punish the Dalmatian pirates - Narentines - for repeatedly raiding across the Adriatic Sea. After the military attempt failed, he tried again - but the result was a peace treaty that made the Most Serene Republic of Venice pay taxes to the Narentines for safe passage for the next 50 years, until Doge Pietro II Orseolo's actions.

Pietro IV Candiano
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pietro IV Candiano (died 976) was the twenty-second (traditional) or twentieth (historical) Doge of Venice from 959 to his death. He was the eldest son of Pietro III Candiano, with whom he co-reigned and whom he was elected to succeed.

Rise
By associating his son with him in the dogeship, Pietro III was trying to establish a hereditary monarchy in Venice. This incurred the wrath of the people, who, in a popular assembly, tried to kill the doge. Pietro IV intervened to save his father's life and exiled him with a small group of followers to Ivrea, where the Margrave Guy took him to his father, the king of Italy, Berengar II. Pietro III then participated with Guy in an expedition against Theobald II, Duke of Spoleto, and gained the support of Berengar for an assault on Venice. At the head of a band of partisans, Pietro IV defeated his father, but did not kill him. He was then elected sole doge.

[edit] Dogado
One of his first acts as doge was the blinding and expulsion of the bishop of Castello, accused of simony. In June 960, he reconvened the popular assembly and had them approve of a law prohibiting the slave trade. For political reasons, Pietro repudiated his first wife, Joan, forcing her into the convent of Santa Zaccaria. He had had two children through her: his son Vitale was later elected doge and his daughter was married to Tribuno Memmo, a future doge. In 966, Pietro remarried to the Lombard Waldrada, daughter of Hubert, Duke of Spoleto, and a relative of the Emperor Otto I. As a relative also of the king of Italy, Waldrada brought him a large dowry including the possession of Treviso, Friuli, and Ferrara. On 2 December 967, Pietro obtained from the emperor the renewal of a series of commercial privileges, for the Venetians in general, but also for himself and his family in particular. While this tightened the ties with the empire of the West, it greatly angered the emperor of the East, John I. John threatened war if the Venetians would not stop contrabanding with the Saracens against whom John was then battling fiercely on multiple fronts. In 971, Pietro had to consent to end the trade with the Moslems.

[edit] Death
In 973, Otto I, protector of Pietro IV, died. His successor, Otto II, was busy with revolts in Germany and so the Venetians opposed to Pietro found their opportunity to depose him then. They locked him in his ducal palace and set it on fire. However, the fire spread to the Limitrofe and to Saint Mark's. Shortly, a greater part of the city was burnt. The doge and his young son by Waldrada, Pietro, were killed and their bodies thrown in the slaughterhouse, but

were after recovered and respectfully buried in the church of Sant'Ilario. Waldrada survived and the succeeding doge, Pietro I Orseolo, left her her inheritance in order not to irk the emperor and direct his attention to recent events and their perpetrators in Venice. Vitale, surviving son of Pietro IV, fled to Saxony, where he conspired against the new doge.

Pietro I Orseolo
Pietro I Orseolo (Peter Urseolus) (928987) was the Doge of Venice from 976 to 978. He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. He was born near Udine to one of the more powerful families in Venice. At the age of 20 he was named commander of the Venetian fleet, performing distinguished service as a soldier, and waging successful campaigns against the Dalmatian pirates. He was also devoted to the Roman Catholic Church. In 976, the sitting doge, Pietro IV Candiano, was killed in a revolution that protested his attempts to create a monarchy. According to a statement by St. Peter Damian, Orseolo himself had led a conspiracy against Candiano. This statement however cannot be verified. Peter was elected to take his place. As doge, Peter demonstrated a good deal of talent in restoring order to unsettled Venice and showed remarkable generosity in the treatment of his predecessor's widow. He built hospitals and cared for widows, orphans and pilgrims. Out of his own resources he began the reconstruction of St. Mark's Basilica and the doge's palace, which had been destroyed during the revolution, along with a great part of the city. Two years later, on September 1, 978, seemingly without notifying anyone, not even his wife and children, he left Venice with Abbot Guarin and three other Venetians (one of whom was St. Romuald) to join the Benedictine (now Cistercian) abbey at Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa (Catalan: Sant Miquel de Cuix) in Prades (Catalan: Prada), southern France. Here he led a life of great asceticism, performing the most menial tasks. There is some evidence that he had been considering such an action for some time. His only contact with Venice was to instruct his son Otto (who had become doge in 1008) in the life of Christian virtue. After some years as a monk at the abbey, probably with the encouragement of Saint Romuald (who later went on to found the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictines), Orseolo left the monastery to become a hermit in the surrounding forest, a calling he followed for seven years until he died. His body is buried in the Prades (Catalan: Prada) church.

[edit] Veneration
Forty years after his death, he was officially recognized as a saint by the local bishop. He is still venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, his cultus having been confirmed in 1731 by Gregory XII, who set his feast day for January 14. The calendar reform after the Second Vatican Council transferred the feast to January 10, the date of his death.

Vitale Candiano
Vitale Candiano was the 24th doge of the Republic of Venice.

He probably was the fourth son of the 22nd doge, Pietro IV Candiano. He was elected by the popular assembly in September of 978 CE. This after having to flee to Saxony because of the revolt against his father. His predecessor Pietro I Orseolo had left Venice to become a monk. He voluntarily abdicated after serving as Doge for 14 months.

[edit] Relationships with the empire of the West

At times, relationship between Venice and Western Empire was rocky because, in 976 CE, Venetian citizens revolted and killed Doge Peter IV Candiano. Granted, he was a despotic leader, but the Western Emperor, Otto II, supported him and he was related by his second marriage to both Otto II's family and that of the King of Italy.

[edit] Abdication
Fourteen months after being elected, Vitale Candiano abdicated, for health reasons. He withdrew to the convent of Sant'Ilario and lived monastic life. In 1017 CE, died there and was buried.

Tribuno Memmo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tribuno Memmo (died 991) was the 25th Doge of Venice who served from 979 to 991. He was illiterate and according to preserved documents, he signed via signum manus. He was rich, partly due to marriage to Marina, daughter of the 22nd Doge Pietro IV Candiano. They had a son, Maurizio. It seems that he had only moved into the Ducal Palace toward the end of his dogeship. It was still in repairs following the fire which occurred during the deposal of Pietro IV Candiano. During his dogeship, St Mark's Basilica became by decree a ducal property, a sort of private chapel in which the ecclesiastical functions were delegated to the primicerius. On June 7, 983, Emperor Otto II renewed the commercial privileges that had already been enjoyed by many previous Doges. He died in 991 and was succeeded by Pietro II Orseolo.

Pietro II Orseolo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pietro II Orseolo was the Doge of Venice from 991 to 1009. He began the period of eastern expansion of Venice that lasted for the better part of 500 years. He secured his influence in the Dalmatian Romanized settlements from the Croats and Paganians, freed Venetia from a 50-year old taxation to Pagania and started Venetia's expansions by conquering Lastovo and Korula and acquiring Dubrovnik.

Reign
[edit] Relations with Byzantium
In 992 Pietro II Orseolo concluded a treaty with the Byzantine emperor Basil II to transport Byzantine troops in exchange for commercial privileges in Constantinople.[1] Following repeated complaints by the Dalmatian city-states in 997, the Venetian fleet under Orseolo attacked the Neretvian pirates of Pagania (Neretvia) on the Ascension Day in 998. Pietro then took the title of Dux Dalmatianorum (Duke of the Dalmatians), associating it with his son Giovanni Orseolo.

[edit] Scorched earth policy

On 9 May 1000 Doge Pietro II decided to finally pacify the Croatians and the Pagania during last Croatian-Bulgarian wars, protecting Venetian trade colonies and the interests of Romanized Dalmatians. Without difficulties, his fleet of 6 ships scorched the entire eastern half of the Adriatic coast, with only the Neretvians offering resistance. After the Neretvians stole goods and captured 40 tradars from Zadar, the Doge dispatched 10 ships that caught the Paganians near the island of Kaa. He captured all Paganians and brought them triumphantly to Split. There, Neretvian emissaries requested the release of the prisoners. Pietro II agreed provided that the Neretvian Archont himself agreed to bow before him. Moreover, the Neretvians would also have to renounce the old tax that Venetia had to pay since 948, and guarantee safe passage to Venetian ships in the Adriatic. Pietro II released all prisoners except for 6 Paganians, whom he kept as hostages. The mainland Paganians were thus pacified, while the citizens of Korula decided to wage war against Orseolo, but were eventually conquered. Lastovo however, continued to resist Venetian incursions. The island was infamous for being a pirate haven. In the effort to decisively quell further opposition, Pietro II ordered the evacuation of the island city. Despite continuing opposition, Pietro II eventually razed Lastovo to the ground. At the same time that Pietro II subjugated Lastovo, the Croatian king Svetoslav Suronja fled to Venice after his forces were defeated with the help of Bulgarian support. To bolster his weakened position, King Stephen I of Croatia married Pietro II Orseolo's daughter, Joscella (Hicela) Orseolo. Their son Peter Kreimir IV become king in Croatia in 1059. Ottone Orseolo succeeded his father, Pietro II as the doge of Venice until 1026, while his grandson Peter reigned as King of Hungary.

[edit] Legacy
The date of his victory became that of the Festa della Sensa, the Ascension Festival, the oldest festival in Venice. It was commemorated by the Doge and the bishop of Olivolo going past the Lido and blessing the waters, invoking good fortune for the Venetian navy.

Otto Orseolo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Orseolo (Italian: Ottone Orseolo, also Urseolo; c.992-1032) was the Doge of Venice from 1008 to 1026. He was the third son of Pietro II Orseolo, whom he succeeded at the age of sixteen, becoming the youngest doge in Venetian history.[1] When the Emperor Otto III sojourned in Verona and granted many privileges to Venice in the March of Verona, he requested Pietro send his third son to Verona, where the Emperor acted as his sponsor at his confirmation.[2] In the Emperor's honour, he was given the name Otto. In 1004, Pietro Otto, in the company of his eldest son and co-doge Giovanni, traveled to Constantinople, where Giovanni married the niece of Basil II, Maria Argyra, and Otto received several honorific titles.[3] After Giovanni's sudden death (1006), Pietro raised Otto to the dogeship with him. He then made a testament, giving the majority of his wealth to the poor and the Church, and retired to a monastery, leaving Otto the government. When Pietro finally died in 1008, he left Otto sole doge at the meager age of sixteen.[4] Soon after the death of his father, Otto married a daughter of the newly Christian and newly crowned Geza of Hungary. Because the Chronicon Venetum of John the Deacon ends in Otto's reign, it is necessary to rely on later chronicles.[4] According to the chronicler (and doge) Andrea Dandolo, writing from a vantage point three centuries ahead, Otto was:

Catholic in faith, calm in purity, strong in justice, eminent in religion, decorous in his manner of life, well-endowed with wealth and possessions, and so filled with all forms of virtue that he was universally considered to be the most fitting successor of his father and grandfather.[4]

Scandal marked much of Otto's reign, as he showed a clear inclination toward nepotism with the elevation of several relatives to positions of power. In 1017, Vitale Candiano, the Patriarch of Grado, died and Otto appointed his elder brother (Pietro's second son), Orso, already Bishop of Torcello, to the vacant patriarchate.[5] Otto then filled the vacant Torcello with his younger brother Vitale. These actions lost him the support of the people, though they did not yet clamour for his removal from office. The denunciations of Poppo of Treffen, the Patriarch of Aquileia, incited the Venetians to expel Otto and the patriarch of Grado from Venice, whence they took refuge in Istria from 1022 to 1023. But in that latter year, Poppo sacked the patriarchal palace and church in Grado and the Venetians recalled Otto and Orso.[5] In 1024, Pope John XIX confirmed Orso's right to hold Grado and confirmed the patriarchal rights of his see vis--vis Aquileia. However, Otto continued to use church appointments to his own personal and familial advantage and the enemies of the Orseoli in Venice, with popular support, moved to depose him in 1026. They arrested him, shaved his beard, and banished him to Constantinople.[6] There he was well-received by Constantine VIII, the uncle of his sister-in-law, who repealed trade privileges previously granted to the Republic under Pietro II. Not for nothing had Otto built up a good rapport with the emperors of Europe: the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II likewise revoked Venetian trade privileges in response to his deposition. His father-in-law Stephen, at the instigation of Otto's son Pietro, attacked the coastal cities of Dalmatia, capturing several from Venice.[6] Meanwhile, the Venetians had grown sick of Otto's successor, Pietro Barbolano, and they deposed him in turn (1032). Vitale of Torcello went to Constantinople to seek out his brother to reassume the ducal throne, while Orso of Grado took the government in his own hands in

the interim.[6] Vitale arrived in the Byzantine capital to find Otto on the verge of death and he died before he could return to Venice. Orso resigned the temporal power as soon as news reached Venice, while a relative, Domenico,[7] tried to usurp the throne. He failed and the Venetians turned to one Domenico Flabanico to be their doge. Otto's son Pietro later succeeded Stephen as King of Hungary.

Pietro Barbolano
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pietro Barbolano (sometimes Pietro Barbo Centranigo) was the 28th Doge of Venice. Reportedly a descendent of the legendary Eraclea (after whom the town near Venice is named), he was elected by the assembly of the nobles after the deposition of his predecessor, Otto Orseolo. The dates of his birth and death are unknown.

[edit] Doge of Venice

Barbolano's reign occurred during a rather difficult time in Venice. The people had spoken out against hereditary monarchy when they deposed Otto Orseolo following the scandals over nepotism. He was never fully able to win over the Venetians as he was not nearly as charismatic as the two previous Doges from the Orseolo family. For the four years of his reign, he struggled to bring the city back together, but he could not. Because the Orseoli had created so many links between their family and the hereditary ruling dynasties of Europe, various actions were taken against Venice as a retaliation for deposing Otto Orseolo. The Byzantine Emperor not only took Otto Orseolo in as a relative (in fact, he was), but he also withdrew the trading privileges granded to Pietro Orseolo in 992. He tried to obtain from the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad II, a renewal of Venetian commercial privileges that had been granted to them by Otto III, but he was not able to do so. In the meantime, King Stephen of Hungary, whose daughter was the wife of Otto Orseolo, attacked Dalmatia and annexed a number of cities that had been captured by Pietro II. The Republic appeared to be collapsing and many people went back to supporting Otto Orseolo, though not the Orseolo family as hereditary rulers. In 1032, Pietro Barbolano abdicated under heavy pressure and Otto Orseolo was called back to rule from his exile in Constantinople. However, when the messengers got there, Otto was approaching his death causing Domenico Orseolo, his relative in Venice, to attempt to seize power. This bold action was extremely ill-received in Venice as the populous displayed its animosity for the notion that an Orseolo was somehow entitled to the Dogeship. Barbolano's successor was chosen in 1032 to be the wealthy merchant Domenico Flabanico, who had few noble ties, to spite the idea of creating a royal family in Venice.

Domenico Flabanico
Domenico Flabanico (died 1043) was the 29th Doge of Venice. His reign lasted from the abdication of Pietro Barbolano in 1032 until his death.

Before Domenico Flabanico took office, there was a significant chaos in Venice. His predecessor had abdicated the position of Doge following extensive public pressure to reinstate Otto Orseolo, but when it was found out that Otto Orseolo was dying, Domenico Orseolo, Otto's less popular relative, public outcry in Venice was great regarding the apparent onset of a nepotistic hereditary monarchy. Flabanico, a successful merchant and popular individual, but less than noble, was elected to spite the notion of royal blood. Under Flabanico, new laws were instilled to limit the powers of the Doge against creating a hereditary monarchy and passing many new acts. In this time, Venice went through a period of infighting and decline. Flabanico was hardly capable of maintaining the diplomatic relationships that were necessary for adequate foreign policy and he let the economy of the Republic of Venice slip due to a general decline in confidence of the Republic. It was only thanks to his successor, Domenico Contarini, that the Republic was restored to a new era of prosperity. He died in 1043, marking the end of more than a decade of rule.

Domenico I Contarini
Domenico Contarini (Birthdate unknown, died 1071 in Venice) was the 30th Doge of Venice. His reign lasted from his election following the death of Domenico Flabanico in 1043 until his own death in 1071. During his reign, the Venetians recaptured Zadar and parts of Dalmatia that had been lost to the Kingdom of Croatia in the previous few decades. The Venetian naval fleet was heavily built up during his reign, the economy thrived, and the Republic of Venice had reasserted its control over much of the Mediterranean Sea.

Family
The Contarini were one of the oldest Venetian families whose origins are often linked to the beginning of the city itself. The first historically verified documentation of the Contarini shows up in 960. Over the centuries, the family had branched out and rooted itself in over 20 familial lines. Domenico was the first Doge of the Contarini family. By 1797, when the last Doge reigned, the family would produce 8 Doges of their own, including Domenico.

[edit] Life
After the capture of Zadar, Venice entered an era of peace. Domenico Contarini maintained friendly relations with the Byzantine Emperors, the Pope in Rome, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry III. Contarini was a liberal builder of churches and monasteries, such as San Nicol di Lido in Lido di Venezia and Sant'Angelo di Concordia. In 1071, just before his death, he commissioned builders to begin work on expanding and restoring St Mark's Basilica. By his wish, he was buried at the church of San Nicol al Lido when he died in 1071. His tomb is above the main doorway, surmounted by a portrait bust which shows him wearing the "corno," the distinctive doge's hat.

Domenico Selvo
Domenico Selvo[1] (died 1087) was the 31st Doge of Venice, serving from 1071 to 1084. During his reign as Doge, his domestic policies, the alliances that he forged, and the battles that the Venetian military won and lost laid the foundations for much of the subsequent foreign and domestic policy of the Republic of Venice. He avoided confrontations with the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Roman Catholic Church at a time in European history when conflict threatened to upset the balance of power. At the same time, he forged new agreements with the major nations that would set up a long period of prosperity for the Republic of Venice. Through his military alliance with the Byzantine Empire, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos awarded Venice economic favors with the declaration of a Golden Bull that would allow for the development of the republic's international trade over the next few centuries. Within the city itself, he supervised a longer period of the construction of the modern St Mark's Basilica than any other Doge. The basilica's complex architecture and expensive decorations stand as a testament to the prosperity of Venetian traders during this period. The essentially democratic way in which he not only was elected but also removed from power was part of an important transition of Venetian political philosophy. The overthrow of his rule in 1084 was one of many forced abdications in the early history of the republic that further blurred the lines between the powers of the Doge, the common electorate, and the nobility.

Background
Beginning with the reign of Pietro II Candiano in 932, Venice saw a string of inept leaders such as Pietro III Candiano, Pietro IV Candiano, and Tribuno Memmo. The reputed arrogance and ambition of these Doges caused the deterioration of the relationship with the Holy Roman Empire in the west, the stagnancy of the relationship with the Byzantine Empire in the east, and discord at home in the Republic.[2] However, in 991, Pietro II Orseolo became the Doge and spent his reign pushing the boundaries of the Republic further east down the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula with his conquests in Dalmatia in 1000.[3] This strengthened the commercial bonds with the empires of the east, Sicily, Northern Africa, and the Holy Roman Empire, and put an end to the infighting among the citizens of Venice.[4] Pietro II's negotiations with Byzantine Emperor Basil II to decrease tariffs on Venetian-produced goods helped foster a new age of prosperity in the Republic as Venetian merchants could undercut the competition in the international markets of the Byzantine Empire.[5] Similarly, Pietro II had success developing a new relationship with Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, who displayed his friendship to him by restoring previously seized lands to Venice, opening up routes of free trade between the two states, and exempting all Venetians from taxes in the Holy Roman Empire.[6] As the power and reputation of Pietro II grew, the Venetian people began to wonder if he was secretly planning to establish a hereditary monarchy.[6] Their fears were confirmed when his son, Otto Orseolo (named after Otto III), assumed the title of Doge upon Pietro II's death in 1009, thereby becoming the youngest Doge in Venetian history at the age of 16.[7] Scandal marked much of Otto's reign as he showed a clear inclination toward nepotism by elevating several relatives to positions of power. In 1026, he was deposed by his enemies and exiled to Constantinople, but his successor, Pietro Barbolano, had such difficulty in attempting to unite the city that it seemed infighting would once again seize Venice.[6]

In 1032, Barbolano himself was deposed by those who wished to restore power to Otto Orseolo, but the former Doge lay dying in Constantinople and was unable to return from exile. Domenico Orseolo, a younger brother of Otto and a rather unpopular figure in Venice, attempted to seize the throne without waiting for the formality of an election, but as soon as he tried this, his many enemies, including those who pushed for the reinstatement of Otto, grew outraged that an Orseolo would assume the throne simply because he was the son of Pietro II. The power of the Doge was severely checked, and Domenico Flabanico, a successful merchant, was called by the people to the position of Doge. During his 11-year reign Flabanico enacted several key reforms that would restrict the power of future Doges, including a law forbidding the election of a son of a Doge.[8] Doge Domenico Contarini (10431071) had a relatively uneventful reign, healing the rift between the Doge and his subjects and regaining territory that had been lost in the east to the Kingdom of Croatia in the years following the deposition of Otto Orseolo.[7] However, one fact remained: based on their actions in the first half of the 11th century, the majority of the people of Venice were clearly not in favor of having a royal hereditary class. This reality, coupled with the fresh memories of power-hungry Doges, set the stage for Domenico Selvo.[6]

[edit] Biography
[edit] Life before Dogeship
What little is known of Selvo's past is based mostly on accounts of his reputation when he entered his Dogeship. Details of his family origins and even the year of his birth are unknown, but it can be assumed that he was a Venetian noble because, with the rare exception of Domenico Flabanico, only members of this class were elected to the position of Doge at this point in the Republic's history. Selvo supposedly belonged to a family in the patrician class from the sestiere of Dorsoduro who were allegedly of ancient Roman origin, possibly from one of the tribunes.[9] He had also apparently been an ambassador to Holy Roman Emperor Henry III and he was certainly ducal counselor to Domenico Contarini prior to his election as Doge.[10] Being connected to the relatively popular Doge might have been one of the causes for his own apparent initial popularity.[9]

[edit] Election as Doge

Selvo is notable for being the first Doge in the history of Venice whose election was recorded by an eyewitness, a parish priest of the church of San Michele Archangelo by the name of Domenico Tino.[11] The account gives historians a valuable glimpse of the power of the popular will of the Venetian people. Over the previous two centuries, the rule of quasityrannies had plagued the popular belief that Venetians held democratic control over their leaders.[12] The events of Selvo's election occurred in the spring of 1071, when the nearly thirty-year reign of Doge Domenico Contarini came to an end upon his death.[13] According to Tino's account, on the day of the election, Selvo was attending mass for the funeral of the late Doge at the new monastery church of San Nicol built under Domenico Contarini on Lido, an island in the Venetian Lagoon. The location was ideal for the funeral of a Doge not only because St Mark's Basilica was under construction at the time, but the new church was also spacious enough to hold a fairly large number of people.[14] The location also proved ideal for the election of a new Doge for the very same reasons.

After the funeral, a large crowd assembled in their gondolas and armed galleys.[9] Domenico Tino says "an innumerable multitude of people, virtually all Venice" was there to voice their opinion on the selection of a new Doge.[15] After the bishop of Venice asked "who would be worthy of his nation," the crowds chanted, "Domenicum Silvium volumus et laudamus" (We want Domenico Selvo and we praise him).[16] The people, according to the account, had clearly spoken, and with these cries, the election was over. A group of more distinguished citizens then lifted the Doge-elect above the roaring crowd, and he was transported as such back to the city.[15][17] Barefoot, in accordance with tradition, Selvo was led into St Mark's Basilica where, amidst the construction materials and scaffolding, he prayed to God, received his staff of office, heard the oaths of fidelity from his subjects, and was legally sworn in as the 31st Doge of Venice.[14][18]

[edit] Peace and prosperity (10711080)

During the first decade of his rule, Selvo's policies were largely a continuation of those of Domenico Contarini. There were few armed conflicts at home or abroad, and the Doge enjoyed a period of popularity due to the prosperous economic conditions.[15] The relations with the Holy Roman Empire were gradually strengthened to a level unknown since the reign of the last Orseolo through relatively free trade and the good relationship that Selvo maintained with Emperor Henry IV.[15] The importance of the economic alliance between the two nations became increasingly crucial when the historically shared power of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope was challenged by the Investiture Controversy between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. Selvo had to walk an extremely tight line of competing priorities. On the one hand, he wanted to maintain the trade agreement Venice had with the lands occupied by Henry IV, but on the other hand, Venetians were religiously loyal to Roman Catholicism as opposed to the Eastern Orthodoxy.[19] At the height of the controversy, Pope Gregory VII privately threatened to excommunicate Selvo and put an interdict on the Venetian Republic, but Selvo was able to narrowly escape this by diplomatically asserting Venice's religious power as the reputed holders of the remains of St Mark.[15][20] In the east, Selvo not only maintained good trade relations with the Byzantine Empire, but also married into their royal family to consolidate the alliance that had existed for many years between the two nations. In 1075, Selvo married Teodora Ducas, daughter of Constantine X and sister of the reigning emperor, Michael VII.[21] Though Venetians, especially the nobles, were wary of the pageantry that accompanied the marriage and the royal bride, the strengthened alliance meant even greater mobility for Venetian merchants in the east.[22] Though the popularity of the new dogaressa was not great, Selvo was the hero of the merchant class that had had even greater political sway since the depositions of the Orseoli.[22]

[edit] Victory (10811083)

Despite the relative peace of the early years of Selvo's reign, the forces that would eventually lead to his deposal had already swung into action. In southern Italy, the Duke of Apulia and Calabria, Robert Guiscard, had spent the majority of his reign consolidating Norman power along the heel and toe of lo Stivale by expelling the Byzantine armies. Guiscard was pushing north toward the Papal States (to which the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria was allied), and was threatening Byzantine control of cities along the Ionian and Adriatic seas.[23] In May 1081, Guiscard led his army and navy across the sea to lay siege to the port city of Durazzo, as it was one end of the famous Via Egnatia, a direct route to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Alexios I Komnenos, the newly-crowned Byzantine Emperor, dispatched an

urgent message to Selvo asking for the mobilization of the Venetian fleet in defense of Durazzo in return for great rewards. The Doge wasted no time in setting sail for the besieged city in charge of his fleet of 14 warships and 45 other vessels. Selvo was motivated not only by his familial ties and the promise of reward, but also the realization that Norman control over the Strait of Otranto would be just as great of a threat to Venetian power in the region as it would be to their ally in the east.[24] When Selvo approached the city, Guiscard's ships had already anchored in the harbor at Durazzo. Though the battle was fierce, superior tactics by the skilled Venetian fleet overpowered the inexperienced Normans who were mostly used to land battles. The battered fleet led by Guiscard retreated into the harbor after losing many ships. Victorious at sea, Selvo left the fleet under the command of his son and returned to Venice a hero.[9] Because of the help given to the Byzantine Empire, the Republic of Venice was awarded a Golden Bull: a decree by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos granting Venice many privileges, including a tax exemption for Venetian merchants, that would be crucial for the future economic and political expansion of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean.[25] The defeat off the coast of Durazzo, though devastating to Guiscard's fleet, had inflicted little damage to his army as the majority of it had disembarked before the battle in preparation of the siege of Durazzo. In the coming months, Guiscard would regroup his forces and defeat a large Byzantine army led by Alexios I himself.[9] In 1082, Guiscard took the city of Durazzo, and as the Venetian sailors were forced out of the city and their ships vacated the harbor of Durazzo, the first victory by Venice against the Norman fleet appeared just a temporary setback for the Normans. Due to the new trade privileges and the fact that virtually no damage was inflicted on the Venetians during this siege, Selvo remained very popular in Venice. Meanwhile, Guiscard advanced rapidly across the Balkan Peninsula, but his march was halted by an urgent dispatch and a call for help from his greatest ally, Pope Gregory VII. Guiscard responded by returning to Italy and marching on Rome to temporarily expel Henry IV, but in the process, he lost almost all the territories he had gained in the Balkans. Knowing that Guiscard was gone, in 1083, Selvo sent the Venetian fleet to recapture both Durazzo and the island of Corfu to the south.[26]

[edit] Defeat and deposal (1084)

In 1084, Guiscard returned to the Balkans and planned a new offensive against Corfu, where a combined Greek-Venetian fleet, commanded by Selvo, awaited his arrival. When the Normans approached the island, the combined fleets dealt Guiscard an even greater defeat than he had received in the naval battle at Durazzo. Guiscard ordered another attack three days later, but the results were still more disastrous for the Normans.[26] Selvo was completely convinced of his fleet's victory and sent all damaged ships north to Venice for repairs, to free them for other uses, and to report of their victory. The Doge then retired with the remaining ships to the Albanian coast to await the departure of the Normans. Acting on the Doge's belief that a third attack would be unlikely and that the presence of a slightly depleted Venetian fleet meant greater odds for victory, Guiscard summoned every floating vessel he could find and led the Normans into a surprise attack. His strategy, though perhaps risky, was ultimately well-calculated as it caused mass confusion among the Venetians, who were overwhelmed on all flanks, while the Greeks fled what they assumed to be a losing battle. Selvo barely managed to retreat with the remainder of his fleet, but not before 3,000 Venetians died and another 2,500 were taken prisoner.[9][27] The Venetians also lost 9 great galleys, the largest and most heavily armed ships in their war fleet.[28]

When the battered fleet returned to Venice, news of the defeat spread throughout the

city to mixed reactions. Though some were willing to forgive the defeat considering the circumstances, many others needed someone to blame for the loss that was considerable not only in human and material terms, but also symbolically. The people of Venice had been humiliated by an upstart nation with practically no naval experience. Though Guiscard would die the next year and the Norman threat would quickly disappear, a scapegoat was needed at that moment.[29] A faction of influential Venetians, possibly led by Vitale Faliero based on later writings, led a popular revolt to depose Selvo, and in December 1084 they succeeded.[26] Selvo apparently did not make a great effort to defend himself and was sent off to a monastery.[9] He died three years later in 1087, and was buried in the loggiato of St. Mark's Basilica.[30] [edit] Legacy After Selvo was deposed, it took several years for Venice to recover from the defeat at Corfu and for the Venetians to fully realize the immediate impact of his actions as Doge. When Venice provided military aid to the Byzantine Empire, they were awarded a Golden Bull by Emperor Alexios I that would provide the Venetians a great economic and strategic advantage throughout the eastern empire for centuries. According to the terms of the decree, annual grants were awarded to all the churches in Venice (including a special gift to the coffers of St Mark's), the Republic was granted whole sections of the Golden Horn in Constantinople, and Venetian merchants were given a full exemption from all taxes and duties throughout the territories of the Byzantine Empire.[26] Not only did this aid the rapid economic growth of Venice in the next few centuries by giving Venetian goods a significant price advantage over other foreign goods, but it initiated a long period of artistic, cultural, and military relationships between Venice and Byzantium. This combination of eastern and western cultural influences made Venice a symbolic gateway between the east and the west in Southern Europe.
At the beginning of Selvo's rule, he took over responsibility for the third construction of St. Mark's Basilica.[32] This final and most famous version of the church, whose construction was begun by Domenico Contarini and finished by Vitale Faliero in 1094, remains an important symbol of the long periods of medieval Venetian wealth and power. The church is also a monument to the great Byzantine influence on Venetian art and culture throughout its history, but particularly in the 11th century. Though Selvo did not oversee the beginning or completion of St Mark's Basilica, his rule covered a longer period of its construction than the other two Doges who oversaw the project.[21] The Doge decreed that all Venetian merchants returning from the east had to bring back marbles or fine carvings to decorate St Mark's.[26] The first mosaics were started in the basilica under the supervision of Selvo.[33]

By gaining power through a vote of confidence from the people and then willingly surrendering power, Selvo, like many other Doges who underwent similar transitions, left a long term impact on the succession process that would eventually become a model for peaceful, anti-nepotistic transitions of power in a classical republic.[34] Although his deposition did not immediately change the system, it was one of many important changes of power in a society that was in the process of moving away from a monarchy and toward a government led by an elected official.[12] Following the battles at Corfu, Selvo was seen by many as inept and incapable of handling the duties that a Doge must perform. His apparent squandering of nearly the entire fleet coupled with a decade-long distrust for his royal wife caused Selvo to become unpopular in Venice.[22] By responding to the will of the people, Selvo helped shape a society that would eventually create a complicated system to check the power of its most influential members, create cooperative governmental branches that checked each other's power, and fuse the nation into a classical republic.[35]

Vitale Faliero
Vitale Faliero Dodoni (also known as Falier de' Doni) and usually known in English as Vitale Falier was the 32nd Doge of Venice from 1084 until his death in 1095. He was a member of a noble Venetian family, probably from Fano. A member of the minor consiglio (the council of doge's advisers), he was elected Doge in the revolt that overthrew Domenico Selvo in December 1084, probably initiated by Faliero himself, among others. He is the first Doge whose image is known, being allegedly portrayed next to the high altar of St. Mark's Basilica. When he became Doge, Venice was supporting the Byzantine Empire in the war against the Normans under Robert Guiscard (see Siege of Durazzo). In the spring of 1095, the Venetian fleet obtained a great naval victory at Butrinthos (in modern-day Albania) that avenged Selvo's defeat at Corfu. The recovery in the prestige of the city is testified by the visit of Emperor Henry IV, to whom it was allied during the Investiture Controversy against the pope, for the consecration of St. Mark's church, the rebuilding of which was completed at this time. During the latter part of his reign the city was hit by an earthquake, a seastorm, and a heavy famine. Faliero died in December 1095. His son Ordelafo became a subsequent Doge.

Vital I Michele
Vital I Michele (or Vitale I Michiel) (died 1102) was a Doge of Venice; he was the 33rd traditional (30th historic) Doge of the Republic of Venice. A member of one of the so-called twelve apostolic families, he was married to Felicia Cornaro. When Pope Urban II initiated the First Crusade, Vitale I Michiel did not initially urge Venices support, perhaps because he could not see the advantages to Venice of such an expedition.

The leader of the crusade, Godfrey of Bouillon (Goffredo di Buglione), along with his older brother, Eustace III of Boulogne, and younger brother Baldwin, left southern Italy in August 1096, with a contingent of 120 ships and (legendarily) 40,000 troops from all over Europe. When Doge Vitale I Michiel saw the European commitment to the First Crusade, he then understood the wars economic importance. In particular, he foresaw that it was vital to Venices trade advantage to participate in territorial conquest, lest these advantages inure to the benefit of other marine republics. In July 1099, 207 ships sailed from Venice to support the First Crusade. Doge Vitale I Michiel appointed his son, Vitale Giovanni, and the Bishop of Olivolo di Castello, Enrico Contarini, as the fleets commanders. In December 1099, at Rhodes, the Venetian fleet intercepted enemy ships and sank them. In the spring of 1100, the Venetian fleet headed towards the Levant, where in the meantime, Godfrey of Bouillon and his troops had taken Jerusalem. Enemy ships had cut off Godfreys ability to receive aid and he was forced to negotiate with the Venetians. In exchange for its services, Venice obtained the right to maintain a quarter not subject to custom offices, taxes, or excise taxes in every conquered city or territory. In 1101, Vitale I Michiele interceded in favor of Mathilde of Tuscany in regards to the purchase of Ferrara, and obtained generous trade concessions as a result. He died in the spring of 1102 and was buried at St. Marks Basilica.

Ordelafo Faliero
Ordelafo Faliero de Doni (or Dodoni) (d. Zara, 1117) was the 34th Doge of Venice. He was the son of the 32nd doge, Vitale Faliero de' Doni. He was a member of the Minor Council (minor consiglio), an assembly formed from members of the so-called "apostolic families" that, in oligarchical Venice, assumed the governmental functions of judges, military councilmen, ambassadors and heads of state. His first name, which is otherwise unknown in Venetian history, is thought to have been derived from a backwards spelling of the Venetian name "Faledro". During his reign as Doge, Faliero went to war against the Hungarians, ruled at the time by Coloman, which lasted from 1105 to 1115. Faliero succeeded in recapturing Zara and Sebenico. Afterwards, Faliero was engaged in an expedition to Syria, comprising 100 Venetian ships, which succeeded in conquering a part of Acre. Objects from the local Syrian convent of Christ Pantocrator were taken back to Saint Mark's Basilica. In Venice, Faliero established the nucleus of what would become the Arsenal. He was killed at Zara during a battle against the Hungarians.

Domenico Michele
Domenico Michele was the 35th Doge of Venice. He reigned from 1117 to 1130.

In August 1122 Domenico Michele led a Venetian fleet of 100 vessels and around 15,000 men for the defense of the Holy Lands. The fleet sailed under the flag of St. Peter, which the Pope had sent to Michele. Over the winter the fleet set siege to Corfu. The siege was cancelled in the spring when news arrived that King Baldwin II of Jerusalem had been captured by the Artuqid Turks, and that the Kingdom of Jerusalem had subsequently been invaded by the Fatimids of Egypt. The Venetian fleet went to the defense of Jerusalem and defeated the Egyptian fleet off of the Syrian coast. The Venetians then landed at Acre; from there Michele went to Jerusalem, where the Pactum Warmundi was signed granting Venice privileged trade concessions, tax freedoms, and even partial ownership of some cities within the Kingdom of Jerusalem. On the return journey to Venice, the fleet looted Rhodes, attacked the islands Samos and Lesbos, and destroyed the city of Modon in the Peloponnese. Domenico Michele triumphantly returned to Venice in June 1125. He had helped the Christians in the Holy Land and weakened the hostile Greeks. The inscription on Michele's tomb does not describe him as a religious crusader, but rather as a terror Graecorum...et laus Venetorum ("A horror to the Greeks...and praise from the Venetians").

Pietro Polani
Pietro Polani (died 1148 at Caorle in the Province of Venice) was the 36th Doge of Venice. He reigned from 1130 to 1148. Polani was elected Doge over the protests of the Dandolo and Bado families because of his first marriage to Adelasa Michele, who was the daughter of his predecessor Domenico Michele. His opponents saw his election to Doge as a violation of a decree that sought to prevent public positions from being passed on through inheritance. Polani's reign was characterized primarily by external threats to the Republic of Venice. Between 1133 and 1135 the Hungarians captured important Venetian bases on the Dalmatian coast, such as Sebenica, Trogir, and Split. In 1141 Padua tried to expand its territory and influence at the expense of Venice, and tried to subvert the monopoly the Venetians held over the salt trade. At the same time, Ancona was infringing on the Venetian border zone in the south. The political structure in Venice reacted to the complicated and dangerous situation by establishing a council of wise men (sapientes) to advise the Doge. The initially informal council included representatives of the previously dominant aristocracy as well as bankers and merchants. This gradually formed a new oligarchy that participated in ruling the state and during the ensuing centuries increasingly restricted the rights of the Doge. One of the first joint decisions by the sapientes and the Doge was the decision not to participate in the Second Crusade. Venice won new influence in the eastern Mediterranean by assisting the Byzantine Empire against the Normans led by Roger II of Sicily. Many of the noble Venetian families were violently opposed to supporting Byzantium, and the Patriarch Enrico Dandolo fulminated against making a pact with East. But not even an excommunication of Polani by the pope could convince the Venetians to forgo the valuable commercial rights they received in Chios, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Candia (Crete) through their alliance with the Byzantin Empire. Polani himself commanded the Venetian fleet against the Normans until sickness forced him to

return prematurely to Venice where he died soon thereafter. The fleet went on without him to decisively defeat the Norman forces of George of Antioch at Cape Matapan in 1148. Polani was buried in the San Cipriano monastery in Murano.

Domenico Morosini
Domenico Morosini (died February 1156) was the thirty-seventh doge of the Republic of Venice, reigning from 1148 until his death in 1156. Descendant of a noble family (he was a count), Morosini succeeded in reconciling the two factions that had divided Venetian patrician families for years, thus ending a political conflict that had also caused the Republic to lose ground in its territories and primacy in its commercial activities. Quite unexceptional otherwise, Morosini's dukedom was marked by renewed prosperity and reconciliation.

Private life
Morosini's early years are difficult to reconstruct, due to the absence of reliable records and sources. As a matter of fact, his birthyear is unknown, as are the activities and connections of his family before his interest in politics[1]. This unusual lack of publicly recorded information is likely because his dukedom was relatively unremarkable in terms of conquests, expansion, and events of significance historians of the Republic would have had little interest in "digging up the past" either to glorify or to marr his legacy. The Morosini had been raised to countship in the late 10th century C.E. after they, with the support of Holy Roman Emperor Otto II, had vanquished the rival Caloprini family.[2]. Domenico brought the family to the forefront of Venetian political life, starting a tradition that would see his successors contribute greatly to the wellbeing of the Republic. Ruggiero Morosini would be admiral of the Venetian navy that defeated the Genoese in 1298, while Francesco Morosini would defeat the Turks on several occasions, somewhat slowing down the westward progress of the Ottoman Empire in the process[3].

[edit] Public office

Morosini took office at a time when relations between Venice and two of its long-time allies, Byzantine Greece and the Normans, were beginning to deteriorate[4]. After the death of his father, emperor Alexios I Komnenos, in 1118, John II Komnenos refused to confirm the 1082 treaty[5] (a chrysobull) with the Republic, which had given it unique and generous trading rights within the Byzantine Empire (there would be no import duties on Venetian shipments to and from the territories of the Empire)[6]. An incident involving the abuse of a member of the imperial family by Venetians led to a dangerous conflict, especially as Byzantium had depended on Venice for its naval strength[7]. After a Byzantine retaliatory attack on Kerkyra, John II exiled the Venetian merchants from Constantinople, but this produced further retaliation, and a Venetian fleet of 72 ships plundered Rhodes, Chios, Samos, Lesbos, Andros and captured Kefalonia in the Ionian Sea.

Relationships with the Normans deteriorated when Venice supported (through its fleet under Naimero and Giovanni Polani, sons of Morosini's predecessor Pietro Polani) a Byzantine intervention to suppress an uprising at Cape Malea (one of the peninsulas in the southeast of the Peloponnese in Greece) in 1149[8]. The 1148 conquest of the Istrian city of Pula, a key port in the peninsula, was followed by an insurgence which Morosini suppressed with atypical shrewdness: in 1150, reconquered Pula swore allegiance to the Republic of Venice, thus becoming a Venetian possession. For centuries thereafter, the city's fate and fortunes would be tied to those of Venetian power. Morosini's foreign policy sought a rapprochement with the Holy See, which had excommunicated the city of Venice because of its familiarity with the Byzantine Empire (and, thus, its schismatic religion). The doge extended an olive branch to Pope Eugene III by consenting, in 1152, to the independence of the Church within the territories of the Republic a move that immediately warranted the repeal of the excommunication and, thus, simplified Venetian tradings with Catholic countries[9]. Further recognition of renewed collaboration came in 1554, when Pope Anastasius IV raised the doge dominator Marchi (lit., "ruler of Marche")[10]. Morosini's reconciliation with the Church had positive effects on domestic policy as well, by bridging a long-standing feud between the Polani and Dandolo patrician families. Enrico Dandolo had been Patriarch of Grado at a particularly tense time between Venice and the pontificate, which had caused the Polani family, strong supporters of the Pope, to break relations with the Dandolos. In an attempt to reconcile the factions that had coalesced around the two families among the patricians, Morosini pushed for a mariage d'affaires between Andrea Dandolo, grandson of Enrico, and Primera Polani, niece of the previous doge[11]. During Morosini's dukedom, construction of St Mark's Campanile was finally completed[12].

Vitale II Michele
Vitale Michiel II (also spelled Vital II Michiel) was Doge of Venice from 1156 to 1172. Vitale Michiel II became Doge at a time when Venice's relations with Byzantium were becoming increasingly strained. At the same time, on account of the growing profitability of mainland Italian markets, Venice was trying to remain on good terms with the Western Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. But eventually, Venice was to come into conflict with both East and West. In 1158, much of Northern Italy was in open revolt against Frederick after his crossing of the Alps. In August 1159, the towns of Milan, Crema, Brescia and Piacenza founded the Lombard League with backing from Pope Adrian and the Kingdom of Sicily. On September 1, 1159 Pope Adrian died, and during the enthronement of his elected successor, Alexander III, the papacy was usurped by a supporter of Frederick, Victor IV. The papacy was disputed for the next 18 years, although most of Europe backed Alexander III. Venice also declared for Alexander III, fearing that Frederick would treat Venice in much the same way as the rest of North Italy. Padua, Verona and Ferrara, which were loyal to Frederick, attacked Venice but

were easily defeated. Next, Frederick engaged The Patriarch of Aquileia to attack Grado. This attack also failed, and merely resulted in Grado having to pay an annual tribute to Venice - a dozen pigs annually on the Wednesday before Lent. These pigs were chased around the Piazza on the following day by the people of Venice. Although Frederick Barbarossa would have liked Venice subdued, he had more pressing problems to deal with elsewhere in Italy. For example he wanted to reclaim Ancona from Byzantium and to continue opposition to Norman Sicily. On these fronts he failed. However, he succeeded in installing another anti-Pope in Rome - Paschal. The Romans fought ferociously to keep Frederick's forces out. St Peter's Basilica was heavily defended and held out for eight days. But eventually the Imperial forces broke in and left the marble pavement of the nave strewn with dead and dying, and the high altar itself stained with blood. On July 30, 1167 anti-Pope Paschal celebrated Mass. Subsequently, Frederick's army was virtually destroyed by pestilence, which most of Europe considered divine retribution for the desecration of St. Peter's. Venice became a founding state of the Greater Lombard League on December 1, 1167. At this time there were many Latins in Constantinople enjoying privileges given them by Manuel and earlier Byzantine Emperors. Most of these were Venetians, who were generally regarded as arrogant, and scornful of the Eastern Empire. Manuel began to reduce the privileges of Venice, and to improve the position of her rivals: Pisa, Genoa and Amalfi. Manuel also captured much of the Dalmatian coast from Stephen III of Hungary, which was another irritation to Venice. In 1171 the Genoese settlement in Constantinople was attacked and largely destroyed. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus blamed the Venetians and on March 12, 1171, orders were given for all Venetian citizens on Byzantine territory to be arrested, and their ships and property confiscated. The old alliance between Venice and Byzantium was over. In order to finance a war against the Eastern Empire, the six districts of Venice were founded to tax the Venetian citizens: San Marco, San Polo, Santa Croce, Dorsoduro, Castello and Cannaregio. In September 1171, Doge Vitale Michiel II led an armada of 120 ships out of the Lagoon to attack Byzantium. Venetian ambassadors met Byzantine representatives and agreed a truce, which was a stalling tactic by Manuel. As talks dragged on through the winter, the Venetian fleet waited at Chios. An outbreak of the plague struck down thousands of the Venetians. The Venetian ambassadors then returned empty-handed from Constantinople, their mission had been a total failure. In May 1172, Doge Vitale Michiel II faced a General Assembly at the Ducal Palace to defend his actions. He had presided over the near total destruction of the Venetian fleet, and was accused of gullibility over falling into the Byzantine trap. He also stood accused of bringing the plague back to the City. The Assembly was against him, and an angry mob gathered outside the Palace. He attempted to flee to the convent of S. Zaccaria over the Ponte della Paglia, but near the Calle della Rasse he was stabbed to death by one of the mob. Venice had not lost a Doge by murder at home for more than 200 years, a fact that caused much soulsearching by the citizens, and led to constitutional reform. Doge Vitale Michiel II's rule had lasted 16 years. For 15 years of those years, he had led the Most Serene Republic well in a difficult period, balancing Venice between the Western and Eastern Empires. His son, Nicolo, married the Hungarian princess Maria, daughter of Ladislaus II.

Today there is no monument in Venice to Doge Vitale Michiel II, but until relatively recently there was at least evidence of his downfall. His murderer had been found and executed, and his house destroyed. A decree was then passed that no stone building should ever be built on the site again. Right up to 1948 the decree was followed: pictures and photographs prior to that year show only small and simple wooden buildings on one of the most strategic sites in all Venice.

Sebastiano Ziani
Sebastiano Ziani was a famous leader of Venice, and was Doge from 1172 to 1178. Ziani was one of the greatest planners of Venice. During his short term as Doge, Ziani divided the city-state into many districts. He realised that the government headquarters were too close to the shipyard. As such, they were affected by the noise from the shipyard. Ziani resolved this problem by donating a piece of land to the city-state and relocating the shipyard in it. He also hosted Pope Alexander III, the Emperor Frederick I, and the delegation of William II of Sicily for the signing of the Treaty of Venice in July 1177.

Orio Mastropiero
Orio Mastropiero was Doge of Venice from 1178 to 1192, when he abdicated and retired to a monastery.

Enrico Dandolo
Enrico Dandolo (1107? 21 June 1205) anglicised as Henry Dandolo and Latinized as Henricus Dandulus was the 41st Doge of Venice from 1195 until his death. Remembered for his blindness, piety, longevity, and shrewdness, and is infamous for his role in the Fourth Crusade which he, at age ninety and blind, surreptitiously redirected against the Byzantine Empire from reconquering the Holy Land, sacking Constantinople in the process. In the nineteenth-century, the Regia Marina (Italian Navy) launched an ironclad battleship named Enrico Dandolo.

Blindness
It is not known for certain when and how Dandolo became blind. The story passed around after the Fourth Crusade (which is the version told by modern Venetians and accepted by many historians) was that he had been blinded by the Byzantines during his 1171 embassy, although it is possible that he suffered from cortical blindness as a result of a severe blow to the back of the head received sometime between 1174 and 1176.[1] Dandolo's blindness appears to have been total. Writing thirty years later, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, who had known Dandolo personally, stated, "Although his eyes appeared normal, he could not see a hand in front of his face, having lost his sight after a head wound."

Although even this account may have become exaggerated by the gloss of time, it is clear in any event that Dandolo's sight was severely impaired.

Life
Early career in politics
Born in Venice, he was the son of the powerful jurist and member of the ducal court, Vitale Dandolo. Dandolo had served the Serenissima Republic in diplomatic (as ambassador to Ferrara and bailus in Constantinople) and perhaps military roles for many years. Dandolo was from a socially and politically prominent Venetian family. His father Vitale was a close advisor of Doge Vitale II Michiel, while an uncle, also named Enrico Dandolo, was patriarch of Grado, the highest-ranking churchman in Venice. Both these men lived to be quite old, and the younger Enrico was overshadowed until he was in his sixties. Dandolo's first important political roles were during the crisis years of 1171 and 1172. In March 1171 the Byzantine government had seized the goods of thousands of Venetians living in the empire, and then imprisoned them all. Popular demand forced the doge to gather a retaliatory expedition, which however fell apart when struck by the plague early in 1172. Dandolo had accompanied the disastrous expedition against Constantinople led by Doge Vitale Michiel during 1171-1172. Upon returning to Venice, Michiel was killed by an irate mob, but Dandolo escaped blame and was appointed as an ambassador to Constantinople in the following year, as Venice sought unsuccessfully to arrive at a diplomatic settlement of its disputes with Byzantium. Renewed negotiations begun twelve years later finally led to a treaty in 1186, but the earlier episodes seem to have created in Enrico Dandolo a deep and abiding hatred for the Byzantines. During the following years Dandolo twice went as ambassador to King William II of Sicily, and then in 1183 returned to Constantinople to negotiate the restoration of the Venetian quarter in the city.

Dogeship
On 1 January 1193, Dandolo became the thirty-ninth Doge of Venice. Already old and blind, but deeply ambitious, he displayed tremendous mental and (for his age) physical strength. Some accounts say he was already 85 years old when he became Doge. His remarkable deeds over the next eleven years bring that age into question, however. Others have hypothesized that he may have been in his mid-70s when he became Venice's leader. Two years after taking office, in 1194, Enrico enacted reforms to the Venetian currency system. He introduced the large silver grosso worth 26 denarii, and the quartarolo worth 1/4 of a dinaro. Also he reinstated the Bianco worth 1/2 denaro, which had not been minted for twenty years. He debased the dinaro and its fractions, whereas the grosso was kept at 98.5% pure silver to ensure its usefulness for foreign trade. Enrico's revolutionary changes made the grosso the dominant currency for trade in the Mediterranean and contributed to the wealth and prestige of Venice. In later years, the value of the grosso would climb relative to the increasingly debased denaro, until it was itself debased in 1332. Soon after the introduction of the grosso, the dinaro began to be referred to as the piccolo. Literally grosso means "large one" and piccolo means "small one".

Fourth Crusade
In 1202 the knights of the Fourth Crusade were stranded in Venice, unable to pay for the ships they had commissioned after far fewer troops arrived than expected. Dandolo developed a plan that allowed the crusaders' debt to be suspended if they assisted the Venetians in restoring nearby Zadar to Venetian control. At an emotional and rousing ceremony in San Marco di Venezia, Dandolo "took the cross" (committed himself to crusading) and was soon joined by thousands of other Venetians. Dandolo became an important leader of the crusade. Venice was the major financial backer of the Fourth Crusade, supplied the Crusaders' ships, and lent money to the Crusaders who became heavily indebted to Venice. Because of the crusaders' continued delays, provisions were also a problem for the enterprise. Although they were supposed to be sailing to Egypt, Dandolo convinced them to stop at Zadar, a port city on the Adriatic that was claimed both by Venice and by the Kingdom of Hungary. Dandolo encouraged the crusaders to attack the city which had rebelled from Venice. A small number of Crusaders refused to help; but the others realized that the conquest of the rebel town and subsequent wintering there was the only way to hold the faltering crusade together. Zadar was besieged and captured on November 15, 1202. Shortly afterwards, Alexius Angelus, son of the deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II, arrived in that city. Dandolo agreed to go along with the crusade leaders' plan to place Alexius Angelus on the throne of the Byzantine Empire in return for Byzantine support of the crusade. This ultimately led to the conquest and sack of Constantinople on April 13, 1204, an event at which Dandolo was present and in which he played a directing role. The Catholic Crusaders then took permanent control of the Eastern Orthodox capital of Constantinople and established a Catholic state, the Latin Empire. In the Partitio Romaniae, Venice gained title to three-eighths of the Byzantine Empire as a result of her crucial support to the Crusade. The Byzantine Empire was never again as powerful as it had been prior to the Fourth Crusade. He was active enough to take part in an expedition against the Bulgarians, but died in 1205. He was buried in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, probably in the upper Eastern gallery. In the 19th century an Italian restoration team placed a cenotaph marker near the probable location, which is still visible today. The marker is frequently mistaken by tourists as being a medieval marker of the actual tomb of the doge. The real tomb was destroyed by the Turks after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and subsequent conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.[citation needed]

Descendants
His son, Raniero, served as vice-doge during Dandolo's absence and was later killed in the war against Genoa for the control of Crete. His granddaughter, Anna Dandolo, was married to the Serbian king Stefan Nemanji. Although later genealogists attributed a whole brood of distinguished children to the doge, none of them actually existed. It is very possible that he had only the one son. During his dogeship he was married to a woman named Contessa, who may have been a member of the Minotto clan. Although there were several subsequent doges of the Dandolo family, none were direct descendents of Enrico.

Pietro Ziani
Pietro Ziani (died 13 March 1230) was the forty-second Doge of Venice from 15 August 1205 to 1229, succeededing Enrico Dandolo. He was the son of Doge Sebastian Ziani of the very rich noble family. In his youth a sailor, he commanded a flotilla escorting the emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1177, took also part in the Fourth Crusade and sacking of Constinople. After his election, Ziani is said to consider the transfer of the capital of the Republic to Constantinople, but eventually the Council decided against it. Instead, he organized the Venetian acquisitions in the territory of the Latin Empire: Crete, Corfu, other islands and the substantial part of Constantinople itself, demanding an oath from the Venetian colony in the city. Ziani established also commercial ties with the post-Byzantine states, signing in 1210 a treaty with the despotate of Epirus under Michael I Komnenos Doukas. In February 1229 he abdicated and in his place a Jacopo Tiepolo was elected, but Ziani refused to meet him and died a year later. He is buried in the church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Jacopo Tiepolo
Jacopo (Giacomo) Tiepolo (b. Venice; d. 19 July 1249, Venice) was Doge of Venice from 6 March 1229 to 2 May 1249. Previously, served as a first Venetian duke of Crete and podest in Constantinople (1218-1220 and 1224-1227). At the election for doge, Tiepolo and his rival Marino Dandolo were tied at 20 votes each, and Tiepolo was selected by drawing lots. This is thought to have sparked the feud between the Tiepolo, who were an old aristocratic family and the Dandolo, who were seen as a nouveauriches.[1] Prior to ascending the ducal throne, Tiepolo also had to sign a trational promissione, which seriously limited his powers.[2] Despite Frederick II Hohenstaufen's cordial visit in Venice in 1232, the relations between the emperor and the Republic deteriorated and, in 1239, Venice joined the Lombard League and fought against Ezzelino III da Romano, a powerful ally of Frederick. In the subsequent fights the Doge's son, Pietro Tiepolo, was captured and killed by the Ghibellines. Jacopo Tiepolo's reign brought other important events: In 1242 the Doge proclaimed Statuto, the codification of the Venetian civil law - work begun by Doge Enrico Dandolo. In the 1240s, two great mendicant orders: the Dominicans and the Franciscans, were granted land in the city and later built on it the two biggest churches in Venice, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, (called San Zanipolo) and Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. In 1249 Tiepolo abdicated, retired to his own house and died after a few months. He was buried in the church of San Zanipolo. Jacopo Tiepolo was the father of Lorenzo Tiepolo who served as doge from 1268 to 1275 and the aforementioned Pietro Tiepolo, podest of Padua.

Marino Morosini
Marino Morosini (1181 in Venice January 1, 1253 in Venice) was the 44th doge of Venice. He governed from 1249 to 1253.

[edit] Family
Marino was one of four members of the Morosini family to be elected doge. The other three were Domenico Morosini (1147-1156), Michele Morosini (1382) and Francesco Morosini (1688-1694). Four women in the family were married to doges and had the title of dogaressa: Tommasina Morosini was the wife of Pietro Gradenigo, Francesca Morosini was married to Andrea Dandolo, Dea Morosini to Niccol Tron and Morosina Morosini to Marino Grimani.

[edit] Life
Morosini was elected doge late in life, at the age of 68. At the time of his election, Morosini was the Procurator of Saint Mark's Basilica. During his political career, Morosini also held the position of Duke of Candia (presently Heraklion, Crete). He was married but did not have any children. His four-year tenure as doge was a time of peace for Venice, although during this period, Louis IX of France led a crusade against Egypt. Not wanting to jeopardize its trade agreement with the sultan, Venice chose not to participate in the crusade. Morosini sought to improve relations with the Vatican by making the concession to accept the establishment of a court of inquisition in Venice, but retained the right to appoint the judges. Nevertheless, tensions remained high between Rome and Venice. Upon his death on January 1, 1253, Marino Morosini was interred in the atrium of Saint Mark's Basilica.

Reniero Zeno
Reniero Zeno (Venetian: Renieri Zen) (died July 7, 1268) was the 45th Doge of Venice, reigning from January 1, 1253 until his death in 1268.

[edit] Life
The first references to Zeno in historical sources describe him as a diplomat in France and Italy, where he was excommunicated for having pushed Bologna to avoid paying tributes to the Papal States. In 1240 he helped Doge Jacopo Tiepolo during the siege of Ferrara, in 1242 put down a revolt in Zara and in 1244 he was named capitano da mar (fleet commander) of the Republic of Venice. He was also the podest (Chief Magistrate) of numerous Italian cities. After the death of Marino Morosini, Zeno, who was podest of Fermo, was elected Doge with 21 out of 41 votes. In 12561259 he helped the Pope Alexander IV and Treviso in the war for

the Marca Trevigiana against the Ghibelline warlord Ezzelino IV da Romano, whose death resolved the conflict. In the meantime, Venice found itself engaged in a war against the Republic of Genoa, its greatest rival in the Mediterranean. The cause of the conflict was the sacking by the Genoese of the Venetian quarter in Tyre. When the future Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo destroyed the Genoese fleet in 1257, Genoa allied with Michael VIII Palaeologus, who in 1261 captured Constantinople, putting the end to the Latin Empire and awarding Genoans the privilegies formerly held by Venetians. Venice replied by building a large fleet which again defeated the Genoese in Settepozzi in 1263. In 1265 a truce was signed between the two parties. In 1268 Byzantine Empire restored to the Venetians most of their former priviliegies, establishing the uneasy balance between the two maritime republics, allowing them to compete freely in the Levant. Also, under Zeno's reign a series of 129 law articles were approved which gave Venice a modern maritime legislation. Doge died in Venice in 1268. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Lorenzo Tiepolo
Lorenzo Tiepolo (died August 15, 1275) was Doge of Venice from 1268 until his death.[1] Born in Venice, Lorenzo Tiepolo was the son of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo. It is a matter of debate if his second wife, Marguerite, was either the daughter of the King of Romania or of Bohemund of Brienne, ruler of Rascia. Tiepolo also demonstrated skill as commander when, during the War of Saint Sabas with Genoa, he defeated the Genoese at Acre in 1257. He served also as a podest of Fano. In 1268, after the death of Reniero Zeno, Lorenzo was elected as Doge on July 23 of that year, with 25 votes out of 41. Although beloved by the population, he attracted the hostility of the Venetian nobility for his nepotism towards his sons. The position of Cancellier Grande ("Great Chancellor") was therefore created to thwart such a behaviour.[2] In 1270, an important treaty of peace was signed with Genoa at Cremona, confirming the Venetian predominance in the Adriatic Sea; however, in that same year a war broke out between Venice and a league of Italian cities including Bologna, Treviso, Verona, Mantua, Ferrara, Cremona, Recanati, and Ancona due to commercial disputes. After an initial setback in 1271, the Venetians were able to regain the upper hand and the terms of peace were favourable to Venice. Under his dogado, in 1273, Marco Polo began his journey to China. He was to return only in 1295. Tiepolo died in Venice in 1275 and was buried with his father in the Dominican church of San Zanipolo.

Jacopo Contarini

Jacopo Contarini (1194-1280) was the 47th Doge of Venice, from 6 September 1275 to his abdication on 6 March 1280. Although he came from one of the most illustrious Venetian families, Contarini was not considered an influential person and he was probably chosen as a compromise between the two major factions. Being already in his eighties and unable to face the position's challenges a revolt in Istria and Crete and a war with Ancona - he abdicated as Doge after five years and retired to a monastery, where he died the same year. He was probably buried in the church of Frari.

Giovanni Dandolo
Giovanni Dandolo was the 48th Doge of Venice, elected on 31 March 1280, died on 2 November 1289. During his reign the first Venetian gold ducat was introduced into circulation.

[edit] Family
Dandolo came from a prominent Venetian family that provided three other doges to Venice: Giovanni's great-grandfather Enrico Dandolo, Francesco Dandolo and Andrea Dandolo. Two women from the Dandolo family married doges: Giovanna Dandolo with Pasqual Malipiero and Zilia Dandolo with Lorenzo Priuli. Dandolo is a distant relative of many famous figures in Italian history, such as Fra Angelico, Eugenio Canfari, Benito Mussolini.

[edit] Life
Before his election as doge, Dandolo occupied various public positions including Podest of Bologna and Padua, and commander of the Venetian naval units. The news of his election to doge reached him while he was fighting in a military action against Istria and Trieste, which expanded into an open war in the following year, also involving Venice's perennial enemy, the Patriarchate of Grado and the Papal States. More armed clashes followed, and continued for the duration of Dandolo's reign as doge. After Dandolo signed the peace Treaty of Ravenna with Ancona, a new military theater opened through the revolt in Crete led by the Greek Alexios Kalergis and backed by the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII, Venice's rival for the domination of the eastern Mediterranean. These conflicts forced the Republic of Venice to negotiate peace agreements with Charles of Anjou and Philip of France, concluding an alliance with the former in the Treaty of Orvieto. During Dandolo's reign as doge, relations with the Vatican were tense. Venice had refused to join the Papal States in a punitive action against Sicily, provoking Pope Martin IV to excommunicate Venice, which was later repealed in 1285 by Martin's successor, Pope Honorius IV. In 1287 unrest flared up again in Istria, this time provoked by the Ottomans[citation needed], and spread to Friuli. The war widened after the intervention of the German Emperor Rudolf I, who was allied with the Patriarchate of Grado, and Venice had to sue for peace.

In 1284, the first Venetian gold ducat, later called the Zecchino, was introduced into circulation. The ducat would be used until the end of the Venetian Republic and was always made with the same weight, 3.56 grams of 24 karat (99.7 %) gold. The coin was valid in all states with which Venice traded. The name ducat comes from the inscription on the coin's back: Sit tibi Christe datus quem tu regis iste ducatus, which frames a picture of Christ. The front of each coin showed the ruling doges on their knees in front of the city's patron saint, Mark the Evangelist. Dandolo was buried in San Zanipolo. The tomb was not preserved, only a stone slab with an inscription commemorates the doge.

Pietro Gradenigo
Pietro Gradenigo (1251 13 August 1311) was the 49th Doge of Venice, reigning from 1289 to his death. When he was elected Doge, he was serving as the podest of Koper / Capodistria in Slovenia. Venice suffered a serious blow with the fall of Acre, the last Crusader stronghold in the Holy Land, to the Mamluks of Egypt in 1291. A war between Venice and Genoa began in 1294, and Venice sustained some serious losses: it lost a naval battle, its possessions in Crete were pillaged and the Byzantine emperor, Andronikos II, arrested many Venetians in Constantinople. In response, the Venetian fleet sacked Galata and threatened the imperial palace of Blachernae, but in 1298 they lost again - this time at Curzola. Eventually, in 1299 the two republics signed a peace treaty. Doge Gradenigo was responsible for the so-called Serrata del Maggior Consiglio, the Locking of the Great Council of Venice. This new law, passed in February 1297, restricted membership of the future Councils only to the descendants of those nobles who were its members between 1293 and 1297. This move created a virtually oligarchic system, disenfranchising a great majority of the citizens and provoking some unrest. In 1308, during Gradenigo's reign as doge, Venice became involved in war with the Papacy over the control of Ferrara and on 27 March 1309 the Republic was excommunicated by Pope Clement V, barring all Christians from trading with Venice. The Doge's policy, seen by many as disastrous, led to a plot to depose him and the Great Council, led by Bajamonte Tiepolo and other members of the aristocratic families. On 15 June 1310, the coup failed and its leaders were severely punished. Tiepolo's plot led to the creation of the Council of Ten, initially as a temporary institution, which later evolved into the permanent body which in reality governed the Republic. On 13 August 1311, Gradenigo died, and, since Venice was under interdict and the religious ceremonies could not be held, he was buried in an unmarked grave on Murano.[1]

Marino Zorzi
Marino Zorzi (c. 1231 July 3, 1312), born in Venice, was the 50th doge of the Republic of Venice, from August 23, 1311 to his death. He was married to Agneta Querini. Considered to have been a devout man, he had served as an ambassador to Rome. He may have been elected

to decrease tensions in the city caused by the attempted revolt of Bajamonte Tiepolo as well as tensions with Rome, still angry with Venice over her occupation of the city of Ferrara (130809). Zorzi had not been the first choice as Doge; Stefano Giustinian had been chosen first, but Giustinian had refused the honor. The elderly Zorzi did not succeed in re-establishing good relations with the Papacy and his short reign was characterized by several natural calamities. His reign lasted only eleven months, and Zorzi, considered a saint in his lifetime, died in 1312. His garments were sought after as holy relics.

Giovanni Soranzo
Giovanni Soranzo (born Burano, 1240 - died Venice, December 31, 1328) was a Venetian statesman who served as the fiftieth Doge of Venice. He ascended to the position on July 13, 1312, and served until his death. Soranzo was a member of a noble and ancient family; in 1310 he was exiled for life from Venice for taking part in Bajamonte Tiepolo's conspiracy to overthrow the state, but he was allowed to return in 1314. He was succeeded as Doge by Francesco Dandolo.

Francesco Dandolo
Francesco Dandolo (died 1339) was the 52nd Doge of Venice. He ruled from 1329 to 1339. During his reign Venice began its policy of extending its territory on the Italian mainland.
Family
The Dandolo family played an important role in Venetian history from the 12th to the 15th century. Historical references to the family as far back as the 11th century, however the family is not considered to be one of the so-called old families (case vecchie) of Venice; the family does not appear on the list of the founding families of Venice. Besides Francesco Dandolo, three other members of the family became doge: Giovanni Dandolo, Andrea Dandolo and Enrico Dandolo. Two women from the family married doges: Giovanna Dandolo with Pasqual Malipiero and Zilia Dandolo with Lorenzo Priuli.

[edit] Life
Dandolo was one of the most successful Venetian diplomats. He was the Venetian Ambassador to the popes Pope Clement V and Pope John XXII in Avignon, which at that time hosted the papal residence. Dandolo was nicknamed cane (dog) after an incident in which he presented himself to the pope wearing a chain around his neck in an attempt to get the pope to revoke the excommunication of Venice. Dandolo was married to Eisabetta Contarini and had three children.

[edit] Doge
During his reign Venice had many skirmishes with the Turks who would rival Venice for domination of the eastern Mediterranean over the next several centuries. Venice also engaged in violent confrontations with the Lord of Verona Mastino II della Scala who continued the territorial politics of his uncle Cangrande I della Scala with the same aggressiveness. The Venetian-occupied cities of Feltre, Belluno und Vicenza were threated by the Veronese but Venice did not react until the Veronese began to control the flow of river trade and tried to set up a trading base in Chioggia. An alliance was formed between the cities of Venice, Florence, Perugia, Siena, and Bologna in order to counter the threat from Verona. In contrast to the usual practice of that time, Venice did not hire an army of mercenaries but instead conscripted its citizens between the ages of 20 and 60 for military service. With this method Venice was able to field an army of 40,000. The battles took place on the entire territory of the Scaliger, with varying results for both sides. Eventually, however, Mastino was defeated. In March, 1337 both sides came to a peace agreement after lengthy negotiations that allowed the soldiers to return to their cities and recover their land. Venice received guarantees of free trade for the affected areas. Mastino, unhappy with the terms of the peace agreement, called upon Emperor Louis IV for help as a mediator, but the emperor sided with the doge and awarded Venice the rights to the city of Mestre. On January 24, 1339 the peace agreement was sealed in Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice. Treviso now came under the control of Venice, Florence received some castles but not the city of Lucca, which caused resentment in Florence and became one of the causes for the subsequent tensions between Venice and Florence. Dandolo died on All Saints' Day in 1339. He was interred in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.

Bartolomeo Gradenigo
Bartolomeo Gradenigo (1259 or 1260 December 28, 1342) was the 53rd doge of Venice from November 7, 1339 until his death.

Biography
Born in Venice to an ancient noble family, he was a rich tradesman. Gradenigo devoted to politics very early in his life, acting as podest of Ragusa and Capodistria, as well as procuratore in the capital. He also became soon renowned for his excessive love for luxury. He married three times and had six children. His short reign was rather peaceful, apart from a revolt in Crete and some Turkish incursions. It was also characterized by some diplomatic moves towards Genoa. The most important event was the tempest that struck against Venice on 15 February 1340 and which, according to legend, was pushed back only through the supernatural intercession of St. Mark, St. George and St. Nicholas, brought to the lagoon by a humble fisherman. After the storm had disappeared, the three saints gave the fisherman a ring, called "Ring of the Fisherman", which he gifted the doges and since then has been part of the ducal jewelry. In fact, Bartolomeo

appears in the painting The Presentation of the Ring by Paris Bordone which shows the fisherman presenting the ring to him.

Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo (1306 September 7, 1354) was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342. Trained in historiography and law, Andrea Dandolo studied at the University of Padua where he became a law professor until he was elected as doge. He was descended from an old Venetian noble family that played an important role in Venetian politics from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, and produced 4 Venetian doges, numerous admirals and several other prominent citizens. Dandolo was known as a benefactor of the arts. He reformed the Venetian legal code, formally proclaiming a legal framework in 1346 that compiled all of the applicable laws in the Republic. He was a friend of Petrarchs, who wrote of Dandolo that he was a just man, incorruptible, full of ardor and love for his country, erudite, eloquent, wise, affable and human. Dandolo's rise to prominence in Venetian public life was precocious. In 1331, at the age of only 25, he was named procurator of St. Mark's Basilica. He became doge in 1343 at the age of 37. During his reign, Venice endured a disastrous war with the Hungarians following Zadars seventh revolt against the Most Serene Republic. Allied with the Hungarians, Genoa deployed a powerful naval fleet to the Adriatic under the command of Paganino Doria that devastated the Venetian territories and threatened Venice herself. Venice was saved by the great naval victory of Lojera in 1353. Venice was struck by a violent earthquake on 25 January 1348 that caused hundreds of casualties, destroyed numerous buildings and, it was assumed at the time, provoked the terrible outbreak of the Black Death, which did not end until 1350. Between 1348 and 1350 a third of the population died. Andrea Dandolo wrote two chronicles in Latin on the history of Venice which can be found in volume XII of Muratoris collection Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Dandolo was the last doge to be interred in St Marks Basilica. The branch of the Dandolo family that currently lives in France descends directly from Andrea Dandolo. Settled in Picardy, the Dandolo family is part of the Italian aristocracy and carries the title of count. He also wrote about history of Croatia in Chronicle of Dalmatia: " Svatopluk, king of Dalmatia.... on Duvno field was crowned and his kingdom of Dalmatia is spread out into 4 regions: From the field called Duvno (Tomislavgrad), to Istra is called White Croatia... and from that field to Drac Durrs in Albania) is called Red Croatia; and the mountainous side

from the river Drina to Macedonia is called Rascia, and to that river to here is called Bosnia. The whole sea coast is called Dalmatia and its mountains are Croatia..."[1]

Marino Faliero
Marino Faliero (1285 17 April 1355) was the fifty-fifth Doge of Venice, appointed on 11 September 1354. He was sometimes referred to simply as Marin Falier (Venetian rather than standard Italian).[1]

[edit] Biography
He attempted a coup d'etat in 1355, at the time being Doge himself, but with the intention of declaring himself Prince. This failed action is mostly attributed to a combination of a strong hatred for nobility and his senility (he was in his seventies at the time). He pleaded guilty to all charges and was beheaded and his body mutilated. Ten additional ringleaders were hanged on display from the Doge's Palace on St Mark's Square.[2] He was condemned to damnatio memoriae, and as such his portrait displayed in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio (Hall of the Great Council) in the Doge's Palace was removed and the space painted over with a black shroud, which can still be seen in the hall today.[2] An inscription reads: Hic est locus Marini Faletro decapitati pro criminibus ("This is the location of Marino Faliero, beheaded for his crimes"). The story of Marino Faliero's uprising was made into a drama by Lord Byron in 1820 and an opera by Gaetano Donizetti in 1835.[citation needed]

Giovanni Gradenigo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Giovanni Gradenigo (died August 8, 1356) was the fifty-sixth Doge of Venice, appointed on April 21, 1355. During his reign, Venice signed a peace with Genoa.

[edit] Biography
Gradenigo was born in Venice. Before his election, he had been podest in Capodistria, Padua, and Treviso. His recognized loyalty to the Venetian Republic probably helped him in being elected, as he came after the conjure which had led to the execution of his predecessor, Marin Falier. Two months after his election, the Venetians signed a peace with Genoa, ending a long and unfavorable war. During his reign measures were take to improve the Republic's economic situation, but in 1356 they were again in war both on the mainland and in Dalmatia. He died in August 1356.

Giovanni Dolfin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Giovanni Dolfin, also known as Giovanni Delfino or Delfin (died July 12, 1361) was the fifty-seventh Doge of Venice, appointed on August 13, 1356. Despite his value as general, during his reign Venice lost Dalmatia. He was blind from one eye after a wound received in battle.

[edit] Biography
He was born in Venice into a noble and wealthy family, and in his youth he fought for Venice. His family was allied with the Gradenigo, whose member Giovanni was doge before him. Dolfin was elected while defending Treviso, then besieged by Hungarian troops; he broke the encirclement and reached Venice to be enthroned. In the war which had broken out under Dolfin's predecessor, Hungary had conquered Dalmatia and were pushing other Venetian colonies to revolt. The Venetian defeat at Nervesa in February 1358 forced the Republic to sue for peace, losing Dalmatia, Zara and Split, but maintaining their naval predominance in the Adriatic Sea as the King of Hungary accepted not to build a fleet of his own. Also in 13581359 Padua started to menace the Venetian trades on the Brenta River and forced the city to stop trading with Egypt. These events triggered an economical crisis in Venice, which ended only after the War of Chioggia, in 1382. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Lorenzo Celsi
Lorenzo Celsi (born Venice, c. 1310, died there July 18, 1365) was a Venitian statesman who served as the 58th Doge of Venice, from July 16, 1361 until his death.

[edit] Biography
He was the son of a rich family, and was previously noted for leading a flotilla against Genoa to help preserve Venetian interests. During his reign, Celsi confronted the revolt of St. Tito in Crete, a rebellion that overthrew the official Venetian authorities and attempted to create an independent state. Celsi was succeeded as Doge by Marco Cornaro.

Marco Cornaro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marco Cornaro (c. 1286 13 January 1368), also known as Marco Corner, was the 59th doge of Venice, ruling between 1365 and 1368. His brief reign saw the loss of Venetian territory to Genoa and the Ottoman Empire, though Venice was to enjoy economic growth during this time.

[edit] Biography
The Cornaro family to which the future doge was born was one of Venice's oldest, its lineage traceable to the Romans. It was also one of the richest, having achieved this status from money-lending. The Cornaros would produce three more doges in the 17th and 18th centuries. Marco Cornaro's first marriage was to Giovanna Scrovegni of Padua, with whom he had three sons and two daughters. His second marriage was to a woman named Caterina about whom little is known other than her low social status made his later election to the doge difficult. Cornaro acquired his own wealth through trade with Egypt. He also followed both military and political careers in the service of the Republic, leading troops at sea and on the mainland. He served as ambassador to Emperor Charles IV and Pope Clement VI, and was also a member of the Venetian delegation to the election of Pope Urban V in Avignon. Cornaro was instrumental in the discovery and suppression of the attempted coup d'tat in 1355 by the then doge Marino Faliero, who intended to declare himself prince of Venice. Following the dissolution of the plot and execution of the conspirators, Cornaro was briefly made vice-doge before a successor to Faliero could be appointed.

[edit] Dogal office

On the death of the previous incumbent Lorenzo Celsi on 18 July 1365, Cornaro was elected to the dogal office, despite the aspersions cast by his opponents over his advanced age, his wife's low birth and his friendships with foreign princes. Once elected, in contrast to his predecessors, he established a respectful stance towards Venice's public bodies. During the two and a half years of his reign, Venice saw no major changes or wars, although it lost the islands of Chios, Lesbos and Phocaea to the Republic of Genoa. He was successful in re-establishing Venetian trade with Egypt by convincing Urban V to rescind his prohibition on dealing with infidels. Cornaro ordered the construction of a wing of the Doge's Palace on its side facing San Marco. Marco Cornaro died in the early hours of 13 January 1368. He is buried in the Basilica of San Zanipolo.

Andrea Contarini
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Andrea Contarini was doge of Venice from 1367 to 1382. He served as doge during the War of Chioggia, which was fought between the Venetian Republic and the Republic of Genoa.

Michele Morosini
Michele Morosini (1308 - 16 October 1382) was the Doge of Venice for a few months, from 10 June to his death in October the same year.

Born in one of the most important Venetian families, Morosini was extremely wealthy. Opinions about him are varied, though, and he is seen either as a devoted servant of the Republic, or as a speculator who enriched himself on real estate during the hard times of the War of Chioggia, fought between Venice and Genoa between 1378 and 1381. Elected after the death of Doge Andrea Contarini, he died very soon of the plague and was buried in the church of San Zanipolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Antonio Venier
Antonio Venier (circa 1330 - 23 November 1400) was a Doge of Venice reigning from October 1382 to his death. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Michele Steno
Michele Steno (Michiel Sten in Venetian Language; 1331 - December 26, 1413) was a Venetian statesman who served as the 63rd Doge of Venice from December 1, 1400 until his death.

[edit] Biography
Steno was born in Venice into a family of some, though not great, wealth, and had lived a dissolute life in youth; he and a number of other young men were at one point were nearly executed by the government for covering the Doge Marino Faliero's throne with "ignominious" inscriptions against him and his wife. He later served as proveditor of Venice, and proved a capable diplomat. In 1400 he was elected as doge as a compromise choice, since previous votes had become deadlocked. Upon becoming Doge he took to dressing like Lorenzo Celsi, who had been known for his elegance of dress. In his accession's year, Venice begun a successful war against Padua and its lord, Francesco da Carrara, leading to a substantial expansion of the republic in the Italian mainland. During the Christian schism of 1408, Venice sided for Pope Alexander V. An old and ill man in his late years, died in 1413, and was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges. Steno was succeeded as Doge by Tommaso Mocenigo.

Tommaso Mocenigo
Tommaso Mocenigo (1343 1423) was doge of Venice from 1414 until his death.

[edit] Biography
He commanded the crusading fleet in the expedition to Nicopolis in 1396 and also won battles against the Genoese during the War of Chioggia of 1378-1381. While he was Venetian ambassador at Cremona, he was elected doge (1414), and he escaped in secret, fearing that he might be held a prisoner by Gabrino Fondolo, tyrant of that city. He made peace with the Turkish sultan, but, when hostilities broke out afresh, his fleet defeated that of the Turks at Gallipoli. During his reign, the patriarch of Aquileia Louis of Teck formed an anti-Venetian alliance with emperor Sigismund. Venice, under a double-sided attack, was however able to launch an offensive that, in 1419-1420, conquered Udine, Cividale, Feltre, Belluno and most of Friuli from the Aquileian patriarchate. The Cadore also surrendered spontaneously. The ensuing treaty led to a peace with Hungary and the annexion of the patriarchate's lands to the Republic of Venice. Mocenigo greatly encouraged commerce, reconstructed the ducal palace and commenced the library. He died after a long illness in 1423. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Francesco Foscari
Francesco Foscari (1373 1 November 1457) was doge of Venice from 1423 to 1457, at the inception of the Italian Renaissance.

Biography
Foscari, of an ancient noble family, served the Republic of Venice in numerous official capacitiesas ambassador, president of the Forty, member of the Council of Ten, inquisitor, Procuratore di San Marco,[1] avvogadore di comun before he was elected in 1423,[2] thus defeating the other candidate, Pietro Loredan. His task as doge was to lead Venice in a long and protracted series of wars against Milan, governed by the Visconti, who were attempting to dominate all of northern Italy.[3] Despite the justification of Venetian embroilment in the terraferma that was offered in Foscari's funeral oration, delivered by the humanist senator and historian Bernardo Giustiniani,[4] and some encouraging notable victories, the war was extremely costly to Venice, whose real source of wealth and power was at sea, and to her ally Florence; they were eventually overcome by the forces of Milan under the leadership of Francesco Sforza. Sforza soon made peace with Florence, however, leaving Venice adrift. In 1445, Foscari's only surviving son, Jacopo, was tried by the Council of Ten on charges of bribery and corruption and exiled from the city. Two further trials, in 1450 and 1456, led to Jacopo's imprisonment on Crete and his eventual death there. News of Jacopo's death caused Foscari to withdraw from his government duties, and in October 1457 the Council of Ten forced him to resign. However, his death a week later provoked such public outcry that he was given a state funeral.

Beside his profile portrait by Lazzaro Bastiani, Foscari commissioned a bas-relief bronze plaquette from Donatello, which survives in several examples.[5] His figure kneeling in prayer to St Mark figured over the portal to the Doge's Palace until it was dismantled by order of the revolutionary government, 1797; the head was preserved and is conserved in the Museo dell'Opera di Palazzo Ducale.[6] His monument by the sculptor Antonio Bregno in collaboration with his architect brother Paolo was erected in Santa Maria dei Frari, Venice.[7] Foscari's life was the subject of a play The Two Foscari by Lord Byron (1821) and an episode in Samuel Rogers' long poem Italy. The Byron play served as the basis for the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave for Giuseppe Verdi's opera I due Foscari, which premiered on 3 November 1844 in Rome. Mary Mitford, author of the popular literary sketches of the English countryside entitled Our Village, also wrote a successful play concerned with events in Foscari's life. Mitford's play debuted at Covent Garden in 1826 with famed actor Charles Kemble in the lead.

Pasquale Malipiero
Pasquale Malipiero, called the dux pacificus (born Venice, 1392 - died there May 7, 1462) was a Venetian statesman who served as the 66th Doge of Venice from October 30, 1457 until his death. He succeeded Francesco Foscari, and was specifically elected by enemies of the Foscari family. in 1458 he signed into law a number of measures limiting the power of the Council of Ten. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges. He was succeeded as Doge by Cristoforo Moro.

Cristoforo Moro
Christoforo Moro (1390 November 10, 1471) was the 67th Doge of Venice. He reigned from 1462 to 1471.

Family
The Moro family settled in Venice in the mid-12th century when Stephanus Maurus, a greatgrandson of Maurus, built a church on the island of Murano.[1] Cristofor was the eleventh person from the family to be elected doge.

[edit] Life
After graduating from university, Moro held various public offices. He was the Venetian ambassador to the Popes Eugene IV and Nicholas V. Saint Bernardino of Siena was said to have prophesized that Moro would one day become doge, and as the fulfillment of a solemn vow Moro had the Church of Saint Giobbe built and dedicated to Bernardino's memory. He bequeathed his fortune to various charitable organizations and foundations, including the Church of Saint Giobbe.

[edit] Doge
Moro's reign was marked by the beginning of a long war between Venice and the Turks. In 1463 Pope Pius II sent Moro a consecrated sword with the intention of convincing Venice to join the anti-Turk alliance. The reaction in Venice was initially hesitant as the Republic's main priority was their economic interests. In April 1463, 10 years after the conquest of Constantinople, Turkish troops occupied the Venetian fortress of Argos in Greece. The Latin Patriarch Cardinal Johannes Bessarion traveled to Venice to call on the Republic to join the "defense of the faith"; ie join the war against the Turks. That same year a coalition was formed between Venice, Hungary and the Albanian prince Skanderbeg with the blessing of the Pope to counter the threat of Sultan Mehmed II's aggressive policy of conquest. The coalition succeeded in temporarily halting Turkish expansion, however the new territorial limits acquired by the Turks in their conquests had by and large accepted. In 1469 the Venetian fleet commander Niccol Canal retook the town of Ainos in Thrace, but he was not able to defend the island of Negroponte (Euboea), a major granary of Venice, from Turkish attack. Euboea was conquered by the Sultan while inflicting enormous losses on the Venetian forces. The Republic faced further threats from the northern Italian cities who coveted Venetian land, as well as from the French king Louis XI who was seeking to expand Lombardy at the expense of Venice.

[edit] Tomb
Moro's tomb is located in the sanctuary of the Church of Saint Giobbe. The tomb is above ground, covered with a marble tombstone.

Nicol Tron
Nicol Tron (Born circa 1399; died 1473 in Venice) was the 68th Doge of Venice, reigning from 1471 to 1473.

[edit] Life
Tron became wealthy after only a brief career as a merchant after which he held various public positions in the government of Venice. He was consigliere for naval matters and ambassador of Venice to Pope Pius II. Tron was married to Dea Morosoni.

[edit] Doge
In the doge election of 1471 Tron prevailed against his later successors Pietro Mocenigo and Andrea Vendramin. During his reign Venice consolidated its control of Cyprus and reduced its frequent quarrels with the Turks by forming an alliance with the Persian Ussan Hassan Beg. His skillful politics enabled Venice to enjoy a period of freedom during his reign. However, his policy of building up the military sharply increased Venice's public debt.

Tron reformed the monetary system of Venice. He introduced a new coin, called the Tron, which on the reverse side depicted the profile of the doge like the ancient coins used to; and thus went against the Venetian practice of rejecting any association of a personality cult with the Republic of Venice. After his death the coin was removed from circulation.

Tomb
Tron's tomb was commissioned by his son Filippo Tron and built in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. The tomb's design and construction is attributed to the architect of the Doge's Palace, Antonio Rizzo. According to the inscription on the monument, the tomb was financed by loot from Tron's wars with the Turks.

Nicolo Marcello
Nicolo Marcello (c. 1399 December 1, 1474) was the 69th Doge of Venice, elected in 1473. He held office for a short period, from August 13, 1473 to December 1, 1474. Said to have been inspired by a previous painting dating from the 15th century, Titian painted Nicolo Marcello's portrait long after his death.

Life
Marcello was a trader with the Orient before he undertook various important public positions in the Republic of Venice such as provost of the Council of Ten, consigliere, and procurator. Marcello married twice: first with Bianca Barbarigo and later with Contarina Contarni, with whom he had a daughter.

[edit] Doge
In the 1473 election for doge, Marcello prevailed against the future doges Pietro Mocenigo and Andrea Vendramin. During his brief reign devoted himself to reorganizing the state finances of Venice. He introduced new silver coins that were called Marcello. In his will Marcello bequeathed most of his wealth to charitable ventures.

[edit] Tomb
Upon his death Marcello was initially interred in the Santa Marina church until its restoration in 1818, at which time a new tomb was built for him by the artist Pietro Lombardo in the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo (Venice).

Pietro Mocenigo
Pietro Mocenigo (14061476) was doge of Venice from 1474 to 1476. He was one of the greatest Venetian admirals and revived the fortunes of his country's navy, which had fallen very low after the defeat at Negropont in 1470. In 1472, he captured and destroyed Smyrna; the following year he placed Catherine Cornaro, queen of Cyprus, under Venetian protection, and, by that means, the republic obtained possession of the island in

1475. He then defeated the Turks who were besieging Scutari, but he there contracted an illness of which he died. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges, with an elaborate tomb by Pietro Lombardo (illustration).

See also

Mocenigo family

Andrea Vendramin
Andrea Vendramin (1393 - May 5, 1478, both Venice) served as Doge of Venice, 1476-78, at the height of Venetian power, the only member of the Vendramin family to do so. His mother, Maria Michiel, and his wife Regina Gradenigo, both came from Dogal families. He had served as Venetian Procurator in Rome, and his brief reign was largely concerned with the end of the Second TurkishVenetian War. He probably died of plague. The process of his election as Doge resulted in a divisive split in the Council, that resulted in bad feelings: in 1477 Antonio Feleto was imprisoned, then banished, for remarking in public that the Council of the Forty-One must have been hard-pressed to elect a cheesemonger Doge. [1] The diarist Malipiero noted that Andrea Vendramin at the time of his election was worth 160,000 ducats, after allowing for 6 to 7000 ducats with which he had endowed each of six daughters, in order to procure politically influential sons-in-law. In his youth, he and his brother Luca, in joint ventures, used to ship from Alexandria enough goods to fill a galley or a galley and a half, Malipiero recorded in retrospect: even his factors grew rich managing his affairs.[2] He has a large monumental wall-tomb, generally agreed to be "the most lavish funerary monument of Renaissance Venice", [3] in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, the usual burial-place of Doges, which was executed by Tullio Lombardo (1493),[4] though Andrea del Verrocchio competed for the commission.[5] It was originally intended for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi. However the portrait in the Frick Collection by Gentile Bellini, inscribed with his name, is now considered to be of his successor, Doge Giovanni Mocenigo. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges. After Andrea's death, his widow married his brother, Luca. For other Andrea Vendramins, see the article on the family

Giovanni Mocenigo
Giovanni Mocenigo (1409 September 14, 1485), Pietro Mocenigo's brother, was doge of Venice from 1478 to 1485. He fought at sea against the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and on land against Ercole I d'Este, duke of Ferrara, from whom he recaptured Rovigo and the Polesine. He was interred in the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Marco Barbarigo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marco Barbarigo (c. 1413 1486) was the 73rd Doge of Venice from 1485 until 1486. His brother was Agostino Barbarigo. The two are the namesakes of the Master of the Barbarigo Reliefs, who was responsible for the creation of their tomb.

[edit] Popular culture

He appears in the video game Assassin's Creed II as a villain, and one of the main character's assassination targets; he was killed while holding a speech on a boat during Carnevale. His bodyguard, Dante Moro would be killed later.

Agostino Barbarigo
Agostino Barbarigo (c. 1420 20 September 1501) was Doge of Venice from 1486 until his death in 1501. While he was Doge, the imposing Clock Tower in the Piazza San Marco with its archway through which the street known as the Merceria leads to the Rialto, was designed and completed. A figure of the Doge was originally shown kneeling before the lion of Venice on the top storey below the bell but this was removed by the French in 1797 after Venice had surrendered to Napoleon.[1] In 1496 he created an Italian coalition to push back Charles VIII of France from Italy, which led to the Battle of Fornovo during the French retreat from Italy. During his reign Venice gained several strongholds in Romagna and annexed the island of Cyprus. His relationships with the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II were initially amicable, but they became increasingly strained starting from 1492, eventually leading to open war in 1499. The Venetian merchants in Istanbul were arrested, while Bosnian troops invaded Dalmatia and reached Zara. The Venetian fleet was defeated at the Battle of Zonchio, and the Republic lost its base in Lepanto. The latter was soon followed by Modone and Corone, which meant the loss of all the main intermediate stops for the Venetian ships sailing towards the Levante. After four years of war, a peace treaty was signed in 1503. By it, Venice maintained in Morea only Nafplion, Patras and Monemvasia. Agostino's brother was Marco Barbarigo, who had preceded him as Doge but survived in office for less than a year;[2] their tomb, originally in the church of the Carita, has been demolished. Part (a relief of the Resurrection of Christ) is in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista, attributed to the workshop of Antonio Rizzo.[3]

Popular culture

Agostino Barbarigo makes a cameo as the doge-elect for his brother Marco in the video game "Assassin's Creed II". Marco's short reign as Doge is ended when the main

character assassinates him. In Facebook game Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy it is discovered that he has become corrupt like his brother before, and is subsequently killed by the Assassins on the 20th of September 1501 via a series of poison-coated letters.

Leonardo Loredan
Leonardo Loredan (or Loredano) (November 16, 1436 June 21, 1521) was the doge of the Republic of Venice from 1501 until his death, in the course of the War of the League of Cambrai. Upon the death of Pope Alexander VI in 1503, Venice occupied several territories in the northern Papal States. When Julius II was elected as Alexander's eventual successor, the Venetians expected their seizure of papal territory to be tacitly accepted, as Julius had been nicknamed Il Veneziano for his pro-Venetian sympathies. But instead the new Pope excommunicated the Republic and united the Papal States in an alliance with France, the Holy Roman Empire and several other Christian states. The Doge's problems did not end in Europe. In 1509, the Battle of Diu took place, in India, where the Portuguese fleet defeated an Ottoman and Mameluk fleet, which had been transferred from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea with Venetian help. The defeat marked the end of the profitable Spice trade, which was bought by Venetians from the Mameluks in Egypt and in turn monopolised its sale in Europe, reaping great revenues from it. After losing to the league's forces at the Battle of Agnadello, Venice found her holdings in Italy shrinking exponentially. Soon Padua, Venice's most strategically vital Terra Firma holding, had fallen, and Venice herself was threatened. Loredan united the population, calling for sacrifice and total mobilisation. Padua was retaken, though Venice was still forced to accept a reluctant peace, following which it joined the Pope as only a junior ally in his new war against the French. When the Pope betrayed Venice once again, upon the verge of victory over France, Venice retaliated by aligning themselves with the French King Louis XII and were able to secure back all the territories they had lost. In addition, the Papacy was forced to repay many outstanding debts to the Loredan family totaling approximately 500,000 Ducats, an enormous sum of money. Giovanni Bellini's portrait of Loredan is notable for being one of the first frontal portraits of a reigning doge; throughout the Middle Ages, mortal men had been portrayed in profile, while the frontal view had been reserved for more sacred subjects. Over two centuries later, when Pompeo Batoni was given a detailed programme for his large Triumph of Venice (1737) by the Odaleschi cardinal who commissioned it, Andrea was chosen to represent the office of Doge, standing amid a group of allegorical personifications.[1]

Antonio Grimani
Antonio Grimani (December 28, 1434 May 7, 1523) was the Doge of Venice from 1521 to 1523.

[edit] Biography
He was born in Venice into a relatively poor family and in his early years he worked as a tradesman, soon becoming one of the most important ones in the city. In 1494 he was created capitano da mar (sea commander-in-chief), a relatively easy task as he had to lead the Venetians operations along the Adriatic coast in a peaceful period. But when in 1499 a new war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire broke out, his lack of experience led to two crushing defeats (Sapienza, August 19, and Zonchio, six days later). Grimani risked the death penalty, but this was turned into a mild exile on the island of Chios. Soon, however, he fled taking refuge in Rome in 1509. Thanks to the intercession of his sons, he could return in Venice in 1509. His political ties soon gained him important administrative charges and created the basis for his future election as doge (July 6, 1521). Aged by the time he assumed the throne, he led the Republic into the Italian War of 1521, the only ally of Francis I of France that did not abandon him. Following the French defeat at the Battle of Bicocca, however, he grew concerned about the course of the war; but he died in 1523, and it was left to his successor, Andrea Gritti, to achieve a settlement with Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The doge's son, Domenico Grimani, became a cardinal in 1493.

Andrea Gritti
Andrea Gritti (1455 December 1538) was the Doge of Venice from 1523 to 1538, following a distinguished diplomatic and military career. Gritti was born in Bardolino, near Verona. He spent much of his early life in Constantinople, looking after Venetian interests. In 1499, he was imprisoned on charges of espionage, but escaped execution due to his friendship with the vizier, and was released several years later. In the early sixteenth century Venice lost nearly all its territory on the Italian mainland, and Gritti played an important part in the events connected with this loss and the eventual return to the status quo ante. In 1509, after the Venetian defeat at the Battle of Agnadello, Gritti was appointed as proveditor to the Venetian army in Treviso; ordered by the Council of Ten to support revolts against the invaders, he successfully engineered the return of Padua to Venetian hands, and its subsequent defence against the Emperor. In 1510, following the death of Nicolo di Pitigliano, Gritti took command of Venice's army, but was forced to withdraw to Venice by French advances. He continued as proveditor through end of the League of Cambrai and the subsequent war of the Holy League. In 1512, he led the negotiations with Francis I that resulted in Venice leaving the League and allying with France. Elected Doge in 1523, Gritti concluded a treaty with Charles V, ending Venice's active involvement in the Italian Wars. He attempted to maintain the neutrality of the Republic in the face of the continued struggle between Charles and Francis, urging both to turn their attention to the advances of the Ottoman Empire in Hungary. However, he could not prevent Suleiman

I from attacking Corfu in 1537, drawing Venice into a war with the Ottomans. He died in 1538.

[edit] External links

http://www.provincia.venezia.it/gritti/en/storia.htm

Pietro Lando
Pietro Lando was the Doge of Venice from 1538 to 1545. He had a distinguished career as Captain-General, but was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty with Suleiman I in 1540, ceding Venice's last possessions in the Peloponnese to the Ottoman Empire.

Francesco Donato
Francesco Donato was the Doge of Venice from 1545 to 1553.[1]

Marcantonio Trivisan
Marcantonio Trivisan was the Doge of Venice from 1553 to 1554.[1]

Francesco Venier
Francesco Venier was the Doge of Venice from 1554 to 1556.[1]

Lorenzo Priuli
Lorenzo Priuli (1489 August 17, 1559) was the 82nd Doge of Venice. He reigned from 1556 to 1559.

Girolamo Priuli (14861567)

Girolamo Priuli (Venice, 1486 Venice, 4 November 1567) was a Venetian noble, who served as the eighty-third Doge of Venice, from 1 September 1559 until his sudden death from a stroke. He was the elder brother of the preceding doge, Lorenzo Priuli. Girolamo's face is familiar from Tintoretto's portrait. Girolamo was the son of Alvise Peruli and his wife Chiara Lion. As a man of culture he seemed insignificant in relation to his brother; ineloquent, he was at first scarcely popular but

gained respect through the works embellishing the city that he achieved as doge, in a period, above all, of peace for the Repubblica Serenissima. His early career established him as an able merchant, though not among the most prominent. He served as procuratore di San Marco. His marriage with Elena Diedo produced a son.

Pietro Loredan (doge)

Pietro Loredan (born Venice, Italy 1482, died Venice, 3 May 1570) was the 84th Doge of Venice. He reigned from 1567 to 1570.

Family
Pietro Loredan came from an important family of Venice, from a branch with Leonardo Loredan, the 75th Doge. His mother, Isabella Barozzi came from one of the oldest Venetian families.

[edit] Life
He was married to Lucrezia Cappello, with whom he had a son, Alvise Loredan. He dealt in particular with its trading activities. Although he was Podest by Verona, but otherwise hardly acted in important offices of the Republic. His election as Doge was a surprise for him.

[edit] Career as Doge

Loredan was at the age of 85 years when elected to the office after having been in a long conclave of two weeks and 76 ballots. His choice was obvious in this bind a stopgap solution, since Loredan had a strong following in the Senate nor had he brought special qualities for the office. In 1569, a fire broke out in the Arsenal. The fire encroached on the adjacent buildings and cost the lives of 2000 people. In the same year five private banks bankrupted. Because of the shortage cereals and bread had to be rationed The Republic came under massive pressure from the Ottoman Sultans, who demanded the release of Cyprus. By frantic diplomatic activity Venice was able to bring together a coalition against the Turks. Finally, it was through the alliance of the Holy League and their victory over the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto that the loss of Cyprus again was averted.

[edit] Tomb
His tomb in the cloister of San Giobbe was a simple ground tomb, covered with a stone slab. It is no longer maintained.

[edit] Literature

Andrea da Mosto.I Dogi di Venezia, Florence 1983 Helmut Dumler:Venedig und die Dogen Dsseldorf 2001

Alvise I Mocenigo
Alvise I Mocenigo (26 October 1507 4 June 1577) was doge of Venice from 1570 to 1577. An admirer of antiquities, Mocenigo was a diplomat of the Republic of Venice at the court of emperor Charles V (1545), to pope Paul IV (1557) and again at the imperial court (1564). In 1567 he was a candidate to the election as doge, but lost to Pietro Loredan. He participated again when the latter died, and was elected as doge of Venice in 1570. At the time of his accession, the Ottoman Empire was preparing to wage war against Venice: the conflict broke out in 1570, and Venice lost the fortresses of Nicosia and Famagusta in Cyprus. Despite the victory of the Christian coalition in the Battle of Lepanto, Venice was forced to sign an unfavorable treaty of peace with the Turks (7 March 1573), by which it recognized the loss of Cyprus. During his reign Venice was visited by the new King of France, Henry III, in July 1574. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

Sebastiano Venier
Sebastiano Venier (or Veniero) (c. 1496 March 3, 1578) was Doge of Venice from June 11, 1577 to March 3, 1578.

[edit] Biography
Venier was born in Venice around 1496. He was a son of Mois Venier and Elena Don, and a nephew of Zuan Francesco Venier, Co-Lord of Cerigo.[1] He was a paternal grandson of Mois Venier (ca. 1412 - ca. 1476)[2]. He was the great-great-great-grandson of Pietro Venier, Governor of Cerigo,[3] and wife. He worked as a lawyer from a very early age, though without holding formal qualifications, and subsequently was an administrator for the government of the Republic of Venice. In 1570 he was procurator and, in the December of the same year, capitano generale da mar ("Chief admiral") of the Venetian fleet in the new war against the Ottoman Turks. He was the commander of the Venetian contingent at Battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571), in which the Christian League decisively defeated the Turks. After the peace he returned to Venice as a very popular figure, and in 1577, at the age of 81, he was unanimously elected Doge. He was married to Cecilia Contarini, who bore him a daughter, Elena Venier, and two sons. One of his sons, Francisco Venier, went to France.

Sebastiano Venier died in 1578, allegedly of broken heart after a fire that had heavily damaged the Doge's Palace of Venice. He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges. He was a first cousin once removed of Cecilia Venier-Baffo, known as Nurbanu Sultan after her conversion to Islam, daughter of his first cousin Nicol Venier, Lord of Paros. He sold her to the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in 1536[4] in order to counter the ascension of Roxelana. She became eventually the wife of his rival Selim II and the mother of Murad III, from whom descend all succeeding Sultans.[5]

Nicol da Ponte
Nicol da Ponte was the 87th Doge of Venice. He reigned from 1578 to 1585.

Pasquale Cicogna
Pasquale Cicogna was the Doge of Venice from 1585 to 1595. He supported the claim of Henry of Navarre to the French throne, and convinced Pope Sixtus V to support Henry in exchange for his conversion to Catholicism. He broke with tradition by scattering silver coins, rather than gold ducats, to the crowd during his coronation procession. These coins were known from then on as cicognini. As his reign of Doge continued his popularity increased because he was very diplomatic and able to tackle major problems with great success. Arguably, one of his greatest successes was converting the Rialto Bridge, one of Venice's major landmarks and the only bridge over the Grand Canal of Venice, from wood to stone between 1588 and 1591. Although greater names such as Michelangelo had submitted designs, Pasquale chose the more humble architect Antonio da Ponte and his nephew Antonio Contin to design and rebuild the Rialto Bridge. After Pasquale Cicogna died of a fever in 1595 a memorial was in scribed on the bridge to the Doge.