Welcome to Italian Histories. I'm Jordan Bradley, and this is Venice, episode seven, crises of Being and a Hope for Salvation. Last episode we saw Venice struggle with a string of doges with varying but never exceptional leadership skills and visions before Doge Pietro Candiano IV came to power with a skill set only eclipsed by his own ambition and avarice. And the result was Venice was in danger of being folded into the mainland feudal empires. The relationship with the East was neglected and deeply strained and the subsequent uprising to remove the Doge had burned over 300 buildings in the heart of Venice to the ground. The fourth's unfiltered avarice had weakened the factional conflict in the lagoon because a number of leading citizens who supported more Western facing policies. saw Doge Candiano IV's implementation of those policies was not at all in their interest. Thus, following Candiano IV's death, Venice appeared to have much more unified front in immediately calling upon Pietro Orseolo I to be the new Doge with a primary focus on stabilizing relationships in the East. Orseolo I is a real interesting character. He's reputed to be one of the most learned men of his era. Deeply religious, and much more concerned with philosophical inquiry than practical work like making money. But he was also very wealthy. Some accounts list him as a chief conspirator against Doge Condiano IV. Some even going as far as to suggest it was his house that was lit on fire to start the attack. While others deny his involvement, and his own record is silent, but it is really easy to read in some supreme guilt after Candiano's demise, and many historians have done just that. Dolo. Oro the first began rebuilding the Chi San Marco and the Duco palace, whose new shape would be closer to what we see today instead of the castle. It was originally built as at his own expense, and then he started building Los San Marco, which took care of indigents and pilgrims again at his own expense. He rebuilt all of this in two short years, as well as better relations with the East, and left other funds to the city that were worth ducats, per year for 80 years. To put that into context, a ducat weighed about 3. 5 grams of gold, which is worth about 282 as of the recording of this episode. So roughly 225, 000 a year for 80 years. And then, with his son in law and a friend, he snuck out of the city, shaved his head and beard, and escaped across the lagoon to the mainland to some waiting horses. and quickly rode 500 miles to a monastery in the Pyrenees, where he would live out the rest of his days. The explanations for his disappearance have been a speculative playground for over a thousand years now. Accounts agree that a monk had visited Venice in 977, and this visit inspired or convinced Doge Orseolo I to give up political life for a life of self denial in the monastery. Some accounts say this monk was a subversive agent from Emperor Otto's court sent to undermine Venetian politics as they turned their political focus back east. Others say it was a monk on his way back from his own pilgrimage to Rome who wanted to visit San Marco and this inspired Doge Orseolo I to make his dramatic life changes. Still other accounts add that the rising pressure from pro mainland factions was weighing him down. And some others say that massive guilt of leading the uprising were breaking his soul and he fled seeking penance. Whatever the final reason. we do know that long before any questions from his political involvement, he and his wife took a vow of chastity after their first and only son was born, which in addition to his extensive studies. showed his religious devotion, his fear of the consequences of actions he felt to be sins, and his inclination toward monastic life. All of this is interesting enough, but Doge Orseolo's life really takes a special place in history due to his canonization as a Catholic saint over 700 years after his death. I have been unable to find the particulars of why he was made a saint at this time. I assume that there were some political reason for doing so, but I betray my cynicism. But the process used by Pope Clement XII of equivalent canonization, which defers to long standing veneration over the process of proving miracles. Speaks to the staying power of Pietro Orseolo I in the minds and hearts and prayers of the people of his time and for centuries after. After the Venetians discovered Orseolo was missing, and they figured out he was not coming back, they elected Vitale Candiano. But he did not last long in office before abdicating for health reasons and dying four days later. Another one of the Candiano line, was elected as the next and 25th ruled impotently for 11 years over a Venice that continued to suffer from factious conflicts so intense and deeply seated that historian Giovanni di Stefano called them political blood feuds. In addition to these problems at home, tensions remained high with the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto II, being against the renewal of Venetian trade privileges in the empire following Venice's turn against Pietro Candiano IV, and the treaty was only renewed in 983 after the intervention of Otto's mother, Empress Adelaide of Italy. The renewal of the treaty again recognized that the Venetian lands existed on their own, ex ducato venetiae, and not ex nostro imperio, from the Venetian duchy and not from our empire, which had been the cause of celebration in the past, but the recognition and the lost tax revenue irritated Otto, and the extreme conflict created not only numerous exiles and corpses, but an opportunity to assert himself, not just in Venetian politics, but over Venice, herself. Otto II ordered a blockade of the lagoon and issued an edict banning his subjects from engaging in commercial activities with the Venetians. This could have devastated the Venetians, and it certainly highlighted the precarious position in which their freedom and fortune was in, but in another moment of exceptional fortune. Otto II died suddenly during a malaria outbreak in Rome at the young age of 28. This left his 3-year-old son, Otto III as King with his mom stepping in his regent and his grandmother again, Adelaide of Italy, replacing her a few years later and lifting the blockade in the siege in 9 91, Giovanni Diacono, the first Venetian chronicler who also personally lived through the siege, sees this event as nothing less than divine intervention. Quote, The Emperor persevered in his siege of the Venetians with such severity and harshness that they could not placate him either with prayers or any kind of gift. And furthermore, he ordered again that none of his subjects dare allow any Venetian to come to any part of his empire. Once he established this, he decided to go to Rome where he did not long remain unscathed. Struck by a strong fever, he died and was buried in the atrium of St. Peter's, not far from the Church of St. Mary. Here is no doubt that as a monk blessed with the prophetic spirit had revealed to him on the instructions of an angel, he ran into sudden death because he had persecuted the Venetians. Venice, afflicted by such calamity for two years, was indeed freed by divine intervention. End quote. For devout Venetians, this divine intervention showed them that God was on their side. For those who do not share their faith, it shows how close Venice came to being snuffed out in its entirety, and how precarious its independence and economic vitality were as it sought to find its place between the Holy Roman Empire and the West. and the Byzantine Empire in the east. And with the collective exhale of the siege ending, Venice knew it was lucky to be free. As Norwich says, quote, Venice was sick to its heart, end quote, but it lacked something to break the factious cycle that was rotting out its very core. After Adelaide lifted the siege, she also added her name to support a request from some pro West faction members who had been exiled from Venice to return to their homeland. Doge Memo was not enthusiastic, but did not want to upset the effective empress who had ended the siege and hoped for peace in the lagoon. He made the exiles swear that they would uphold peace in the lagoon and assured them their safety after returning. But the Doge's Promises did not placate the families who had suffered from the exiles murderous acts a decade before and one day three of the returned exiles were viciously murdered and Giovanni Diacono reports that the canals were stained red with the blood from the scope and severity of the conflicts that resulted from the murders. The Concho, the General Assembly, immediately pressured Doge Memo to abdicate as he was unable to keep the promise of safety to the returned exiles or peace in the lagoon at large. Doge memo obliged and died shortly after his abdication The General Assembly then turned to Pietro Orsteolo the second Son of the escaped Doge and future Saint, who vowed chastity after Peter II was born, and was now a monk in the Pyrenees, to lead Venice as Doge. Pietro must have known that the change was coming because he traveled to the Convento di San Michele de Cuscia before the election and was blessed by his father who counseled him to govern simply and remain a friend with the church. II took this council seriously and elected Doge at only 30 years old, would reveal himself a master statesman and provide a path forward for Venetian greatness. Doge Orseolo II set his initial focus on four simple but ambitious goals. Calm factional conflict in Venice. Collaboration with the Byzantines and an expansion of economic opportunities in the East. Peaceful relationships with the West focused on open commercial pathways. Secure the safety of Venetian ships sailing along the Dalmatian coast from Norentian pirates. The history of Venice thus far has shown the lagoon moving more to one faction or the other as the leadership changed, B'Orsiolo II saw that the real driving force behind the factions was a question of who prospered from the direction. either eastward or westward, of the ruling faction and focused on politics that sought to create the conditions of prosperity for both factions, thus placating the destructive self interest that fueled the centuries of previous conflict. Urselo II quickly accomplished this by first restoring relations with the east and negotiating a new treaty that significantly lowered tariffs on Venetian goods and housed Venetian merchants in the Grand Logothethe, the seat of the financial department that gave them direct access to navigate and circumvent the Byzantine bureaucracy in exchange for an agreement to maintain Venetian ships ready to carry imperial troops when asked, simultaneously enhancing Venetian commercial opportunities, profit margins, and the status of the Venetian fleet throughout the Mediterranean. He also built a strong relationship with the young Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, both commercially, where the Emperor gave Venice rights to build storehouses along the river routes and freedom from tariffs, with an eye toward inviting Venice to help him with future ambitions in Italy, and personally, where Otto III would eventually be godfather to two of Orseolo's children, personally holding Orseolo's daughter at her baptism in Venice, and giving his own name to Orseolo's youngest son, who is called Otto in English histories and Otone in Italian ones. During this period, a new type of commercial enterprise also appears in Venice that started to check the factional drive for a state policy that favored one empire over the other. La Colla Ganza was a type of business partnership that will sound commonplace to modern ears, but was quite novel at the time, allowing for anyone to buy into a voyage and share in the profits from successful ventures, or lose from the unsuccessful ones, at a proportional rate with the investment in the venture. Prior to this, La fraterna was the primary economic entity that could bear the burden of financing voyages, and fraterna was just a family pooling its money together for the building of generational wealth, and relied on connections in foreign ports that prejudiced the family's interest towards one empire over another. While La Colla Ganza opened up opportunities for investing in journeys where you had no personal connections to sell or trade goods, as well as the opportunity to build wealth by investing in voyages without having to own the ship or directly hire the crew. I want to highlight this business entity not because it was a cure all for Venetian woes, it was not, but it highlights Venetian ingenuity and economic innovation that was well ahead of its time in devising legal arrangements that would become commonplace in the modern world. In addition to his masterclass in medieval statesmanship with the Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires, Doge Orsteolo II also restored a significant amount of Venetian pride and stopped tribute payments to the Norentian pirates at the first opportunity. and then sent a fleet of six ships instead of the withheld payments to make sure that there were not any retaliatory attacks. There were retaliatory attacks, which the Venetian fleet defeated, and they returned confident and loaded with captured pirates to be sold as slaves. In practice, however, the reduction of piracy was limited because of the decentralized nature of the pirate organizations. And after eight years of ruling, Doge Orteolo II decided to go on the offensive again along the length of the Dalmatian coast, thanks to Giovanni Diacono, we have a first hand account of the voyage and battles, as the fleet was welcomed as liberators and showed their kindness and generosity to cities that welcomed them, or sieged their way in as liberators and showed no mercy to those who opposed them. This military action established friendly ports all along the Eastern Adriatic coast for Venetian commerce between the lagoon and Constantinople. And it showed the Venetians helping the Byzantines by bringing order to lands, which were still nominally controlled by the Byzantine empire. Giovanni Di Stefano says this is effectively the time when the Adriatic Sea became the Gulf of Venice, and the peace and home waters gave the lagoon the springboard that would launch it into an empire in its own right. And the Venetians, though they could not see the future that was coming, clearly felt the importance and the power of the moment. Doge Ortheolo II returned to Venice and was recognized as Dux venticorum et demalticum, the Duke of Venice and Dalmatia. And the Venetians held the first ceremony that would evolve into the marriage of the sea, La Festa della Senza, where the Doge would go out each year and throw a gold ring into the sea to demonstrate the Venetian commitment to and dominance of the sea. I don't think the political acumen of Orseolo II should be taken for granted. He restored neglected and severely damaged relations with both the Eastern and Western empires While moderating the partisan factions of those empires that had been enervating Venice for centuries He was able to make deep bonds with Otto the third and tell him no When Otto wanted the Venetians to join his armies in an effort to unite Italy under his rule he was able to strengthen political and economic bonds with the Byzantines and increase venice's commercial advantages while weakening the Byzantine Navy and bringing lands under his control that were still nominally theirs. He was able to send fleets to foreign Islamic ports, to the disapprobation of Christendom, and work out favorable trade deals for Venice, while at the same time, leading out the fleet personally against the Saracens, who were sieging Bari, the largest Greek community on the peninsula at the time, and liberated it on behalf of the Byzantines, who had not even asked for the help, but desperately needed it. He navigated the contradictory forces that had, and would continue, to tear states apart for centuries. Peace. And he grew Venice's wealth and glory while doing it. Even great miracles happened during this time. As the body of San Marco, originally hidden to protect it from looters by a few high ranking officials who had managed to save it during the fire in 976 that burned the Ducal Palace and the original Basilica di San Marco to the ground the night Doge Pietro Candiano IV was killed, was now feared missing as the location of the hidden relic was lost with the death of those who had hid him, In 1004, the people of the city were called together in the new bica to pray for the restoration of the relic. And miraculously, a pillar broke open and the arm of the saint fell down. Their saint restored, their strength growing, and their coffers expanding. Venice couldn't ask for more. But, sad drumroll, bum bum bum, Dojo Orseolo II was still like the previous Dojos before him in his efforts to establish Venice as a hereditary fiefdom for his family. After his two oldest sons, Orso and Vitale took up military careers, he was able to successfully raise his son Giovanni to codoge, make him Duke of Dalmatia, and send him and his youngest son, Otone, to Constantinople after the successful breaking of the Siege in Bari. And Giovanni was married to Princess Maria Agira, niece of the two co emperors of Byzantium. The marriage was, by all accounts, celebrated with a wonderful ceremony and quickly produced a son. But the joy and promise of the new family quickly turned bitter as a plague struck Venice, and in the space of 16 days, Giovanni, Maria, and the young son Basilio all died. Pietro Orsiolo II. Was inconsolable, and never the same. He was able to raise his youngest son, Otone, to be co doge in Giovanni's place, but he then withdrew and withered away, until his death two years later. Following Pietro Orseolo II's death, otone became the doge without any objection or interruption at 16 years old. You Making him the youngest ever Doge in Venetian history. For such a young age, his reputation was far more than his name. Quote, Catholic in faith, calm and 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, end quote, by one comprehensive account, though his familial relations with and the various honors he had received from both the Eastern and Western empires certainly didn't hurt. But for all his education, he lacked his father's ability to balance interests. And while he did not have the personal avarice and greed of failed doges before him, he failed to understand that people can be just as jealous and guarded of their political power as they are of their wealth and property. In his first ten years of rule, Otone led successful attacks against pirate communities and brought them under Venetian control. And his brother Orso became first bishop of Torcello and then patriarch of corrado. After Orso left the bishop office vacant in Torcello, Otone helped him fill the seat with his other brother, Vitale. And suddenly, three brothers, not yet in their thirties, controlled the three most powerful political and spiritual offices in Venice, and had the resources and skills to use them well. Over the next five years, it appears they did use those powers and the Doge increasingly exercised more authoritarian power against the efforts of one tribune. Domenico Flabanico, to check them, and a spirit of rebellion rose in the lagoon against the Doge and his brothers, which led them to flee to Istria in 1023. The Patriarch of Aquileia, who had already asked the Pope to give him the Patriarchy of Grado in return to the old argument that it should never have existed in the first place, did not waste a second of the opportunity and asked permission from the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II to take control of Grado in order to protect Urso's holdings. And because of the family connections and interest in protecting that property, the Emperor said yes. But the guise of protecting the property was quickly dropped after the patriarch of Aquileia used the permission to gather his army and enter gudo without delays, and then started sacking and looting the land in hopes of ending the conflict of power between the two patriarchies that had been going on for hundreds of years. Even the auntie or factions, could not stand for this sacking, and the Doge and his brothers were quickly called back from their self imposed exile to save the lagoon. Using both their holy power and military experience, they retook Grotto, and then Pope John the 19th again confirmed the patriarch of Gus right to rule the region at the end of 10 24. This was a huge victory for Dojo, Tolo and his family. But the question was if it was also a victory for Venice. In addition to his increasingly authoritarian use of power and the expansion of his family and friends into the most powerful offices of the lagoon, Dojo Tonio Arceolo had also married the daughter of the King of Hungary, and the King of Hungary had done this to establish a legitimate claim to the Duchy of Dalmatia. At the same time, he was also encouraging rebellions against Venice amongst the people of Dalmatia. Revealing the existential danger of the ursolo strategy of intermarrying into royal families that provided short term alliances for Venice, but long term claims against her own independence. And only two short years after returning from self imposed exile, Dojotone Orseolo found himself again in open conflict with the Tribune Domenico Flabannico over the appointment of an 18 year old to the powerful bishop position of Vescovo d'Olivio The end result being that the doge was captured, his head and beard shaven, and he was exiled to Constantinople. The Venetians elected Pietro Centranico, who, to be fair, didn't stand much of a chance matching Orfeolo's skills and successes, and had to address a lot of growing dangers. First among those dangers was the growing threat of the King of Hungary, who endangered the string of friendly harbors along the Dalmatian coast on the trade route to Constantinople. And this contributed to the second problem of a breakdown in relations with Constantinople. Where the exiled Doge Otone Orseolo was family and friend of the Eastern Imperial Court and had ample time to air his grievances, which led to the revocation of trade privileges in the empire. And third, a breakdown of relations with the Western Imperial Court because the emperor, Henry II, had died. And after several years, Conrad II, who not only represented new management, but a new dynastic line, took the imperial throne and did not extend Venice the protected trade and travel privileges previously granted. In an effort to subjugate her to his crown, and use her naval capacities as a bulk work against the Eastern Empire. Venice had suddenly moved from being a player in imperial politics, to being a pawn. The conspiracy against Doge Pietro was driven largely by the ambitious and the pro or solo faction, hungry to have the power back and capable of swaying the General Assembly to act against the Doge. He was deposed in a retaliatory act that saw him shaved and exiled just as his predecessor had been. And then the Assembly appointed the Patriarch of Grado, Orso, as a co doge, and Orso sent a party led by Vitale, the Bishop of Torcello, to Constantinople to retrieve his brother, Doge Ottone, to return from exile once again to lead Venice. But the party that was supposed to bring back the Orseolo dynasty Instead found Otone in poor health when they reached Constantinople Otone refused to return to Venice and died in Constantinople. As Venice learned of and sought to digest this news, Orso resigned his position as codoge to return fully to the seat of the patriarch, and a relative whose precise relation to the family is unknown, attempted to take the ducal throne. He held it for a couple days before the people rose up against him and chased him into some lost corner of history from whence he never returned. efforts to take the ducal throne, to claim it as his own because of his name and not his merits, seems to have been a tipping point for Venice. The explosion of existential dangers, external and internal, swinging them wildly from prosperity to the threat of total subjugation and back again, seems to have finally prepared the lagoon for significant structural changes to the organization of power in the lagoon. In response to the popular uprising against Domenico Orzeolo and Orzo and Vitale's withdrawal from political power back to their spiritual and temporal realms, as much as one could separate those two things in medieval Catholicism, the General Assembly called back Domenico Flabanico, who had been in exile since the pro Orzeolo faction had retaken Venice. And elected him the next Doge of Venice. Flabonico, as a Tribune, had stood up to Otone Orseolo's authoritarian use of power on many occasions, and had contributed directly to both of Orseolo's exiles. And as he took power, he quickly showed that his efforts to limit the Doge's power were principled. And not self interested, until he got power himself, like so many factional opponents before in Venice's history. Doge Flabonico instituted constitutional reforms which prohibited himself and all future doges from being able to choose a co doge. Thus preventing the doge from both choosing his successor, And more importantly, eliminating any hereditary claim over Venice that marriage to the Doge may have created in the past. Doge Flabonico also restructured the Old Tribune counselors, the two officials who had been appointed since the 750s to counsel the Doge in his decisions but were frequently disregarded, and made them proper counselors. One from the right bank and the other from the left bank of the Grand Canal, who had to be present to vote with the Doge before any official action could be taken. And then he ruled over an otherwise uneventful 11 years before dying in 1043. Jumping ahead to 80 years after the end of the Venetian Republic, as the Venetians reflected on greater times, they dedicated a new dry dock for repairing Gondolae, which is now a popular site for starting gondola tours called the Baccino Orsoleo that you can find that you can see near Piazza San Marco. And set marble inscriptions on each side to honor the man who gave Venice supremacy over the Adriatic. On the right side, Pietro Orseolo II is praised for ruling Venice with wisdom and fortune. And on the left side is this beautiful dedica. River Franco. Slavic people owed him. He earned the damacy. He broke the Saracens. He gave back Bari to the Byzantines. The temple of St. Mark, the duchal palace, he cremated and burned. So much more he did for the country. Orseolo II. Revered by the emperors of the East and the West, he established and extended the commerce of the Venetians. He weakened the Slavic people and pirates. He won Dalmatia. He broke the Saracens and gave Bari back to Byzantium. He grew and adorned the Temple of San Marco and the Ducal Palace. This much and more he did for the homeland, initiator of its greatness. Pietro Orseolo II In contrast, you won't find any memorials to Doge Flobanico, and his grave has been lost to history. In most histories he is ignored, and where mentioned, it is brief. Norwich dedicates a paragraph to the end of the political practice of co doge, and then remarks that Flabonico's reign emerges as something of a milestone in Venetian history. At the same time, it seems to have been unusually devoid of incident. In a word, Boring, but I want to disagree. Doge Pietro Orsello the second did conquer the Adriatic and start Venice down the path of empire, but Doge Domenico Flabonico gave Venice a freedom from dynastic and blood based claims to rule that protected her claim to independence as Adriatic. And he gave Venice the foundation of a new political institution. Nel concilio del dux, the ducal council that would continue to evolve for the next hundred years into the minor concilio, the minor council, and fundamentally alter how future doges could exercise power and to what ends that power was exercised. The history of Venice up to this point has been a history of the men who have ruled it. But with Flabonico's constitutional innovations, we're going to see some changes in the direction of that history. And I'll leave you to decide if the boring and manifestly unsexy work of building new institutions that checked power and eliminated hereditary claims to rule Venice wasn't as important, or more so, than the submission of the pirates and the conquering of the Adriatic. Next episode, we'll meet Papal mercenaries and enter the First Crusade. The history of Venice up to this point has been a history of the men who have ruled it. But with Flabonico's constitutional innovations, we're going to see some changes in the direction of that history.