Enrico Dandolo
Enrico Dandolo (born 1107?, Venice—died 1205, Constantinople) was the doge of the Republic of Venice from 1192 to 1205, noted for his promotion of the Fourth Crusade, which led to the overthrow of the Greek Byzantine Empire and the aggrandizement of Venice.
Dandolo’s father, Vitale, had held important public positions; and during Enrico Dandolo’s public life he was sent on many important missions for the Venetian government. He accompanied the doge Vitale II Michiel on an expedition to Constantinople in 1171. The following year, with the Byzantine ambassador, he went again to Constantinople, where, according to one account, he was so assiduous in defending the interests of the Venetians that the Emperor had him blinded. But the chronicler Geoffroi de Villehardouin, who wrote the history of the Fourth Crusade and knew Enrico Dandolo personally, stated merely that he did not see well because of an injury to his head. After his diplomatic mission to Constantinople, Dandolo went as ambassador to the King of Sicily (1174) and then to Ferrara (1191). When the doge Orio Mastropiero retired to a monastery, Dandolo was elected doge on June 1, 1192, at the age of 85.
In one of his first actions as doge, he swore the “ducal promise,” spelling out the rights and duties of the office of doge. Dandolo also revised the penal code and published the first collection of civil statutes, setting the customary law of Venice on a firm juridical basis. He also revised the coinage, issuing a silver coin called the grosso, or matapan. This began a wide-ranging economic policy intended to promote trade with the East. Dandolo’s image appears on the grosso coin; he is wearing a cloak and holding the “ducal promise” in his left hand while St. Mark presents him with the gonfalon (banner) in his right.
He also concluded treaties with Verona and Treviso (1192), with the Patriarch of Aquileia (1200), with the King of Armenia (1201), and with the Byzantine Empire (1199) and the Holy Roman Emperor (1201). He fought a victorious war against the Pisans in 1199.
But the prominent place Enrico Dandolo occupies in history must be attributed to the part he played in the Fourth Crusade: the arrangements made with the French barons for the transportation of their army; his provision of funds in exchange for their assistance in conquering Zara (Zadar), a Christian town on the Dalmatian coast then held by the King of Hungary; and his success in persuading the crusaders to help the Venetians conquer Constantinople. The personality of the Doge stands out vividly in the accounts of the chroniclers. Although quite old, he was always found in the front line. At the assault of Constantinople he stood in the bow of his galley, completely armed and with the gonfalon of St. Mark’s in front of him, encouraging his men as they made their landing.
After the capture of Constantinople, Dandolo took for himself and the doges of Venice the title “lord of the fourth part and a half of the whole empire of Romania.” The title corresponded exactly to that part of the territories of the Byzantine Empire apportioned to the Venetians in the division of spoils among the crusaders. Since he had been one of the most powerful leaders of the expedition, Dandolo remained in Constantinople to direct all the operations there and also to look out for the interests of Venice. It is said that he had some valuable marble shipped to his son Renier for the construction of the great palace of the Dandolos on the Grand Canal. Ruins of a building in Moorish style and an ancient column of green marble were discovered in an excavation performed during the 19th century in the San Luca section of Venice, where the Dandolo palace had been located.
Dandolo died in Constantinople in 1205 and was buried in the vestibule of the church of Sta. Sophia in a marble tomb, on top of which was sculptured the doge’s cap and the coat of arms of St. Mark’s. The tomb was probably destroyed when Sta. Sophia was converted to a mosque after the conquest by the Turks in 1453.
When Dandolo became doge, the Venetian republic faced considerable problems both internally and abroad. He resolved the internal problems by giving Venice an advanced civil code and constitutional system. In his pursuit of Venetian interests in the Adriatic and in the East, he was able, through shrewd commercial transactions, to acquire large territorial possessions. His burial at Constantinople was symbolic of that city’s importance in the rise of Venice to wealth and power.