Enrico Contarini (died 15 November 1108) was a Venetian priest who was
Bishop of Castello
The Diocese of Castello, originally the Diocese of Olivolo, is a former Roman Catholic diocese that was based on the city of Venice in Italy.
It was established in 774, covering the islands that are now occupied by Venice. Throughout its existen ...
from 1074 to 1108.
Biography
Enrico Contarini was the son of the Doge
Domenico Contarini of the aristocratic Venetian family (
House of Contarini
The House of Contarini is one of the founding families of Venicehttps://archive.org/details/teatroaraldicose02tett, Leone Tettoni. ''Teatro araldico ovvero raccolta generale delle armi ed insegne gentilizie delle piu illustri e nobili casate ...
).
He was appointed Bishop of Olivolo or Rialto in 1074.
That year the Bishop of Olivolo began to be styled the Bishop of Castello.
Enrico Contarini was the first to hold this title.
The Doge
Vitale Michiel (1096-1112) held back from participating in the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic r ...
until he saw the amount of loot that the Genoese and Pisans were bringing back from Palestine.
In 1099 Enrico Contarini was the spiritual leader of the fleet of about 200 ships that Michiel sent to assist in the crusade in the Levant.
The fleet sailed to
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...
, where it wintered.
The emperor of Byzantium asked the Venetians not to proceed, but the bishop overcame any who were inclined to listen to this request.
In the spring of 1100 the fleet went on to
Myra in Asia Minor, where they obtained the remains of
Saint Nicholas, his uncle Nicholas and Saint
Theodore the Martyr
Theodore the Martyr refers to the two saints Theodore of Amasea (Theodore the Recruit) and Theodore Stratelates (Theodore the General), two important military saints of the Byzantine period.
The two saints are likely identical in origin, the ve ...
. They went on to the Holy Land, then returned to Venice, which they reached on 6 December 1100. With Saint Nicholas the Bishop obtained a patron saint to rival the Doge's Saint Mark.
Theodore the Martyr became one of the four tutelary guardians of Venice, along with the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary and Saint
Mark the Evangelist.
Enrico Contarini died in office on 15 November 1108.
See also
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Catholic Church in Italy
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, image = San_Giovanni_in_Laterano_-_Rome.jpg
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, alt =
, caption = Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, the ''cathedra'' seat of the Pop ...
References
Citations
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Contarini, Enrico
1108 deaths
Bishops of Venice
Enrico
Enrico is both an Italian masculine given name and a surname, Enrico means homeowner, or king, derived from ''Heinrich'' of Germanic origin. It is also a given name in Ladino. Equivalents in other languages are Henry ( English), Henri ( French), ...
Year of birth unknown