VENICE, PATRIARCHATE OF. – Patriarchate and provincial capital city in Veneto.
The diocese has a population of 362,564, of whom 357,250 are Catholics, distributed across 94 parishes.
Favorable to the Franks, the patriarchate had Fortunatus of Grado as its leader for a brief period; until Pippin, King of Italy, attempted by land and sea to seize the lagoons by force. However, the Patricians, who held the Duchy from 811 to 887 with the support of the East, managed to thwart him. Meanwhile, the center of the Duchy, which had first shifted to Malamocco, settled on the group of small islands known as Rialto (812), and with this, Venice truly began, while Grado and Torcello began their decline.
The extent to which Constantinople was concerned with preserving a sovereignty that was becoming increasingly nominal is demonstrated by its relations with Venice: tribunes and dukes were occasionally adorned with the pompous titles of patricians, patricians, proedri, and even marital ties were formed with prominent families. Nonetheless, after 810, Venice did not fail to secure its independence through repeated agreements with the rulers of the mainland; thus, while dependence on Constantinople grew ever more tenuous, no feudal ties were established with the rector, and instead, full autonomy for Venice was established. Certainly, the internal institutions on which it relied were not so secure or precise as to prevent internal rivalries, uprisings, and even bloody repression. A social body had formed among the refugees who had brought with them the remnants of ancient wealth and the local inhabitants who had maritime experience, bound together by common public and private needs, though this did not prevent the emergence of certain localities and families capable of exercising preponderant influence in the common assembly, directing the course of affairs and playing leading roles in politics. Wealthy and energetic figures gathered their own followers, formed factions, held dominance, and even created something akin to ducal dynasties: after the Parteciaci came the Candiani (932–976), who did not hesitate to rely on the Saxon kings, followed by the Orseoli (976–1032).
The first major military operation at sea was conducted by Pietro II Orseolo in 1000 along the Dalmatian coast from Zara to Ragusa to curb the violence of Slavic pirates who infested the Adriatic, dared to attack Grado and Venice itself, and demanded tribute. Thus began that right to defend the gulf that Venice reserved for itself, excluding any other armed fleet from the Adriatic, later symbolized by the solemn ceremony of the *Sposalizio del mare* celebrated annually on Ascension Day. In this way, commercial relations with Constantinople, Alexandria, Syria, and the entire Levant, extending into the Black Sea, which were the primary reason for Venice’s prosperity, could be maintained more broadly and securely.
Corresponding to these strengthened ties and the growing prosperity that accompanied the rise of the Italian communes and the expansion of their agricultural and industrial production—facilitating lucrative exchanges—Venice became concerned with keeping open communications and markets in the hinterland, supporting the political and social aspirations of the communes themselves, and favoring their leagues in defense of their liberties. Hence its hostile stance against Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II, and its consistent aim, even through force, to draw the Patriarch of Aquileia and the Istrian cities into its sphere of interests.
Venice stood alongside Pisa and Genoa in aiding the Crusades; yet it did not hesitate to subordinate the Fourth Crusade to its own interests when, with the help of Western warriors, it first wrested Zara from Hungarian rule and then directed the ships under Doge Enrico Dandolo against Constantinople (1201–1204), where the Latin Empire was established, lasting until 1261 (v. ORANTE, Impero d’It., and the Latin patriarchate reserved for Venetian prelates). This increased Venice’s importance and prestige; but after 1261, Genoa too found opportunity to expand its fortunes under the Paleologi, even into the Black Sea, thus entering into competition with Venice. This rivalry turned into open hostility after the definitive fall of Acre (1291), when the first war between the two republics broke out (1294–99); followed by a second (1350–55), which resulted in the loss of Dalmatia for Venice (1358), and finally a third, even more serious, in 1375, when Venice temporarily lost even Istria and Chioggia and found itself opposed by Friuli, Hungary, and Padua. Yet Venice managed to blockade Chioggia, expel the Genoese, and conclude the Peace of Turin in 1381, through which it reclaimed much of what had been lost, restored its prestige in the East, and expanded its trade, especially with Egypt: twice a year, its ships in “caravans” visited the most distant markets of the East and reached as far as Flanders; they also transported pilgrims to the Holy Land on fixed schedules. The silver ducat (minted in 1193) and the zecchino or gold ducat (minted in 1284) enjoyed secure credit in trade. Venice reached its zenith, also thanks to the privileges it enjoyed and was able to protect, safeguarding citizens and interests entrusted to the bailiffs who resided permanently in the most frequented places.
Meanwhile, internal institutions had developed in parallel. An aristocracy of the most powerful families, centered in Rialto and excluding any representation of smaller centers, tenaciously worked to limit the authority of the doge, imposing their control upon him and forcing him to swear to a program of government, while reducing the people to nothingness by stripping the popular assembly of its powers. Thus, two, and later six (one for each *sestieri* of the city), *savi* (wise men) were placed alongside the doge; in 1223, the Quarantia was established as the supreme state tribunal; and the three heads of the Quarantia, together with six councillors and the doge, formed what, after 1423, was called the Signoria. In turn, together with the six *savi grandi*, the five *savi di terraferma*, and the five *savi agli ordini*, they formed the College, a kind of ministry. Meanwhile, the assembly was supplanted by the Great Council, reserved for members of the most important families, whose restricted number was further limited in 1297 by the *Serrata* under Doge Pietro Gradenigo; this assembly formed the foundation of the state, and to it were reserved the appointments to the most important offices, except that of the doge, which was reached through a complex system of ballots. The soul of the state, however, was the Council of Pregadi (Senate), where the major affairs of state were discussed, definitively organized in 1229 with 60 members elected by the Great Council, later increased with the *Zonta* of another 60. Members of the College and the procurators of St. Mark also participated, and their number grew in the 15th century.
Venice – The regatta on the Grand Canal. In the background, the Rialto Bridge, a work by A. da Ponte (1388–91).
Up to the 9th century, they had the task of overseeing the Basilica, pious bequests, and charity: the three *Avogadori di Comun*, fiscal agents to uphold the rights of the State, and later the Inquisitors. State treasurers were the *Camerlenghi*, who resided in Rialto; while other commissions were entrusted with special duties for the protection of public finance or morality. In 1310, on the occasion of conspiracies and disturbances, the Council of Ten was established and made permanent in 1335; it was presided over in rotation each month by three of its members known as the “Heads of the Ten.” They were entrusted with the supreme police and surveillance service for the safety of the State and operated with absolute speed and secrecy, controlling the actions of all magistrates and diplomats, including the Doge. The Council concentrated so much authority, to the detriment of the other supreme orders of the State, that it became necessary toward the end of the 16th century to limit its powers. The people gathered in its *scuole*, which nobles also attended, in the guilds, and in confraternities, most of which were linked to religious Orders; while the clergy had no part in any public offices of any rank, except—at least in the early period—that of notary. Public offices were unpaid, including ambassadorships, and only extraordinary expenses were reimbursed. Although there were occasional abuses, the system of government functioned very well and long aroused the admiration of those who recognized its stability and upright conduct.
The tangled events in the hinterland, complicated by Austrian and Hungarian ambitions, had offered and imposed the necessity for Venice to intervene more effectively than in the past. With the conquest of Friuli (1420), all Venetian cities (except Mantua) now entered its dominion, which in 1426–27 also included Bergamo, Brescia, and other smaller districts. Consequently, Venice found itself more closely entangled in the web of mutual jealousies and conflicts that made relations among the various Italian powers uneasy, beginning with Ferrara. Having become master of Ravenna in 1441, of Faenza, Rimini, and other places in Romagna after the fall of the Valentino (1503), and of Otranto, Brindisi, Trani, Gallipoli, and other locations in the Kingdom of Naples, it provoked against itself the League of Cambrai (1509) among the Empire, France, and Spain, to which Julius II also adhered in order to secure his own interests, so that it seemed Venice might be reduced to its lagoons. But the hard war that followed forced Venice to abandon its recent possessions in Romagna and Apulia, though it enabled it to recover the rest of its Italian dominion and preserve it, albeit with exposed and uncertain borders along the Isonzo, until the Napoleonic invasion.
More serious for Venice from this time onward were the repercussions on its commerce from the Portuguese discovery of the new route to the East Indies, while the system of relations it had created with Alexandria and the eastern Mediterranean was gradually unraveling. Indeed, with Turkish penetration into Europe in the second half of the 14th century, there began that absorption of territories that led to the fall of Constantinople (1453) and the conquest of nearly the entire Balkan and Greek region, where Venice also had possessions and interests. Henceforth, Venice was the only maritime power resisting Turkish power in the Levantine seas once the Turks were able to field a fleet; and this was so even when European powers, beset by dynastic disputes or by the desire to expand at the expense of others—and unwilling to lend it support—readily accused it of lack of faith if, out of necessity, it was forced to make agreements with the Turk. Urged on by the popes beginning with Eugenius IV, and always aided by them, Venice supplied ships, wealth, and captains in a struggle that lasted until the end of the Candia War (1669); fortresses and islands were lost and retaken repeatedly. In 1470, one of its major strongholds, Negroponte, fell; and to prevent Cyprus from also falling into Turkish hands, Venice compelled Caterina Cornaro, widow of James II of Lusignan, King of the island (d. 1473), to cede its dominion to her in 1489 and set about fortifying II. Yet the campaigns of 1500–1503 in alliance with Alexander VI and of Prevesa with Paul III in 1539–40 did not achieve the hoped-for results. Even after that
Venice – The apse of the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, a work by Pietro Lombardo (1489).
most glorious moment, which culminated in the victory of Lepanto (7 Oct. 1571), to which Venice contributed with remarkable effort, it did not obtain the advantages it deserved; it lost Cyprus, and, inadequately supported by its allies, was forced to conclude a burdensome peace with the Turk. The struggle soon resumed and culminated in the following century with the war to maintain possession of Candia, which lasted from 1645 to September 1669. That island too had to be abandoned after a heroic defense marked by episodes of heroism that exhausted Venice’s economic resources, forcing it even to resort to Church property and the sale of offices, though it did not prevent Venice at the end of the century from reconquering the Morea and some islands, which it lost again with the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718. From these epic struggles, the Turkish Empire emerged exhausted, and Europe prepared for a new political order; Venice continued to defend Dalmatia, Albania, and the Ionian Islands to secure navigation in the Adriatic, where, however, Habsburg power was beginning to emerge in Trieste. In 1797, with the Treaty of Campo Formio, Venice lost its independence, and Napoleon ceded it to Austria. The splendor that Venice had preserved until the end vanished, glorious memories dispersed, until it was reduced to a provincial town without life or initiative, under the rule of a flat and monotonous bureaucracy; only in 1849, for a few months, the glories of an unfortunate resistance interrupted Austrian rule, which lasted until 1866.