The Podestà of Constantinople was the official in charge of Venetian possessions in the

Latin Empire The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantin ...

and the Venetian quarter of

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

during the 13th century. Nominally a vassal to the

Latin Emperor The Latin Emperor was the ruler of the Latin Empire, the historiographical convention for the Crusader realm, established in Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade (1204) and lasting until the city was reconquered by the Byzantine Greeks in 12 ...

, the Podestà functioned as a ruler in his own right, and answered to the

Doge of Venice The Doge of Venice ( ) – in Italian, was the doge or highest role of authority within the Republic of Venice (697–1797). The word derives from the Latin , meaning 'leader', and Venetian Italian dialect for 'duke', highest official of the ...

. The Podestà was also officially known as Governor of One-Fourth and One-Half of the Empire of Romania and was entitled to wearing the crimson buskins as the emperors.Hazlitt, William Carew. The Venetian Republic: Its Rise, Its Growth, and Its Fall 421–1797. Vol. 1, A. And C. Black, 1900.

History

Background

The Venetians had enjoyed their own quarter in the Byzantine capital of

since the 1082 chrysobull of Emperor

Alexios I Komnenos Alexios I Komnenos (, – 15 August 1118), Latinization of names, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus, was Byzantine Emperor, Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. After usurper, usurping the throne, he was faced with a collapsing empire and ...

. How that colony was governed is unknown; most likely it elected its own local elders, but occasionally consuls sent from Venice, or passing captains of the Venetian fleet, may have assumed some political responsibility. The Venetian position in Constantinople was immensely strengthened as a result of the

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

, in which the Venetian fleet, and the Doge

Enrico Dandolo Enrico Dandolo (Anglicised as Henry Dandolo, and Latinised as Henricus Dandulus; – May/June 1205) was the doge of Venice from 1192 until his death in 1205. He is remembered for his avowed piety, longevity, and shrewdness, and his role in the ...

, played a critical role. In the aftermath of the

Sack of Constantinople The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusaders sacked and destroyed most of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire ( ...

and the establishment of the

, he secured for Venice terms that made it paramount in the new state: the Republic claimed three eighths of the former Byzantine possessions, ensured recognition of the privileges the Republic had enjoyed under the Byzantine emperors, secured a dominant voice in the election of the

Latin Patriarch of Constantinople The Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople was an office established as a result of the Fourth Crusade and its conquest of Constantinople in 1204. It was a Roman Catholic replacement for the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantino ...

, and pushed through its own candidate, Baldwin of Flanders, as the first Latin Emperor. Dandolo himself remained in Constantinople and received the exalted Byzantine title of Despot. Until his death on 29 May 1205, in the aftermath of the disastrous

Battle of Adrianople The Battle of Adrianople also known as Battle of Hadrianopolis was fought between the Eastern Roman army led by the Roman emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic Alans, and various local rebels) ...

, he remained the ruler of the local Venetians, and one of the most important statesmen of the Latin Empire.

Establishment of the office

After Dandolo's death, the Venetians of Constantinople elected

Marino Zeno Marino Zeno () was a Venetian nobleman and administrator. Life Nothing is known of Marino Zeno's early life, before his election in May 1205 as the Venetian Podestà of Constantinople, in the aftermath of the capture of Constantinople by the Fo ...

as '

By the Grace of God By the Grace of God (, abbreviated D.G.) is a formulaic phrase used especially in Christian monarchies as an introductory part of the full styles of a monarch. In England and later the United Kingdom, the phrase was formally added to the royal sty ...

Podestà (), also potestate or podesta in English, was the name given to the holder of the highest civil office in the government of the cities of central and northern Italy during the Late Middle Ages. Sometimes, it meant the chief magistrate of a c ...

and lord of one quarter and one half uarterof the whole Empire of Romania' in the Doge's stead. The use of such lofty titles was also a stake for influence given the existing power vacuum in the Latin Empire following Adrianople. Already in the first act of the new official, dated 29 June 1205, he appears with his own privy council, with a composition similar to the council of the Doge in Venice: judges (), councillors (), a treasurer (), and a prosecutorial magistrate (). The Venetian administration set up its base at the Pantokrator Monastery complex. According to the 16th-century historian

Daniele Barbaro Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro (also Barbarus) (8 February 1514 – 13 April 1570) was an Italian cleric and diplomat. He was also an architect, writer on architecture, and translator of, and commentator on, Vitruvius. Barbaro's fame is chie ...

, for a while after Dandolo's death it was seriously considered to move the capital of the Republic from Venice to Constantinople. Although in all probability a later invention, it is an indication of the size and eminence of the Venetian community in Constantinople become at this time, as well as the dominant role the Venetians played in the affairs of the Latin Empire. When Pietro Ziani was elected Doge in Venice to succeed Dandolo, on the one hand he (reluctantly) recognized the ''

fait accompli Many words in the English vocabulary are of French language, French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman conquest of England, Norman ...

'' of Zeno's election and confirmed him in his office, but also moved quickly "to redress the balance" between the mother city and its colony in Constantinople. In the first of these actions, October 1205, Zeno ceded Durazzo,

Vagenetia Vagenetia or Vagenitia () was a medieval region on the coast of Epirus, roughly corresponding to modern Thesprotia. The region likely derived its name from the Slavic tribe of the Baiounitai. It is first attested as a '' sclavinia'' under some sor ...

, and

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

, territories belonging to the Venetian share of the Empire of Romania and strategically located at the exit of the

Adriatic The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Se ...

, directly to Venice, although in reality the area was held by the Greek ruler of

Epirus Epirus () is a Region#Geographical regions, geographical and historical region, historical region in southeastern Europe, now shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay ...

Michael I Komnenos Doukas Michael I Komnenos Doukas, Latinized as Comnenus Ducas (), and in modern sources often recorded as Michael I Angelos, a name he never used, was the founder and first ruler of the Despotate of Epirus from until his assassination in 1214/15. Bor ...

, whom the Venetians recognized in these possessions in 1210 as a Venetian vassal. At about the same time, Ziani issued a decree allowing any Venetian or allied citizen to privately occupy and govern any formerly Byzantine territory, with the right to pass this possession on to his descendants. This decree effectively bypassed the Podestà as the nominal head of the Venetians in the Latin Empire: men like the Venetian Marco Sanudo, who founded the

Duchy of Naxos The Duchy of the Archipelago (, , ), also known as Duchy of Naxos or Duchy of the Aegean, was a maritime state created by Venetian interests in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea, in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, centered on the i ...

, were thus subordinated directly to the Latin Emperor. After 1207, the title 'Lord of one fourth and one half of the Empire of Romania' () was applied to the Doge rather than the Podestà, who became simply 'the Podestà of the Venetians in Constantinople' (). The Doges retained that title until the 1358 Treaty of Zara, and although some of the Podestàs used it, it was only in their capacity as the Doge's representative.

Position within the Latin Empire

Based on an agreement concluded in October 1205, the Podestà and his councillors () formed part of the executive council () of the Latin Empire, which was responsible for defence and foreign policy matters, as well as adjudicating disputes between the Emperor and his feudal lieges, alongside the Emperor and the 'Frankish magnates' (). However, the Venetian position was ambiguous: as Filip Van Tricht explains, Venice was "at one and the same time an independent state and a feudal partner in the empire". Thus the Podestà conducted his own negotiations and concluded trade agreements with neighbouring rulers, although this independence did not extend to other areas of foreign policy, and the commercial agreements appear to have been largely aligned with the Latin Empire's policy at the time. The tension between Venice and the Emperor is evident in the frequent attempts by the emperors and powerful barons of the Latin Empire to intrude in nominally Venetian jurisdictions, and restrict and even revert Venetian claims and rights deriving from the Empire's foundational treaties of 1204–1205. This tendency arose very quickly: already by 1208, the executive council stipulated in 1205 had ceased to play its intended role, and the Emperor ceased involving the Podestà or the Venetians in his decisions. This development was aided on the one hand by the stabilization of the Empire's military situation after its catastrophic early years, and by the relative weakness of the Podestà and his councillors, given their brief and circumscribed tenures, vis-a-vis the Emperor and his barons.

Abolition and aftermath

In 1261, when Constantinople was retaken by the Byzantines under

Michael VIII Palaiologos Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus (; 1224 – 11 December 1282) reigned as Byzantine emperor from 1261 until his death in 1282, and previously as the co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea from 1259 to 1261. Michael VIII was the founder of th ...

, the office of Podestà ceased to exist and the Venetians were expelled from the city. In the Treaty of 1265/68 with Palaiologos, under which the Venetians were allowed to return, and the subsequent treaties, the Venetian colony in the city was now headed by an official known as the

Bailo ''Bailo'' or ''baylo'' (plural ''baili'' or ''bayli'') is a Venetian title that derives from the Latin term '' baiulus'', meaning "porter, bearer". In English, it may be translated bailiff, or otherwise rendered as bailey, baili, bailie, bailli o ...

(''baiulus'' or ''rector'').

List of known Podestàs

, May 1205 – May 1207 * Ottaviano Querini, May 1207 – spring 1209, *

Marino Dandolo Marino Dandolo (; died before 1243) was a Venetian nobleman and first Latin ruler of the island of Andros following the Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The sta ...

, attested spring 1214, tenure sometime between 1212–1216 *

Jacopo Tiepolo Jacopo Tiepolo (shortly before 1170 – 19 July 1249), also known as Giacomo Tiepolo, was Doge of Venice from 1229 to 1249. He had previously served as the first Venetian Duke of Crete, and two terms as Podestà of Constantinople, twice as gove ...

, in 1218–1220; during his tenure he concluded a

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

with the

Empire of Nicaea The Empire of Nicaea (), also known as the Nicene Empire, was the largest of the three Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by Walter Abel Heurtley, W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C ...

, and received the title of Despot. * Marino Michiel, attested March 1221, likely autumn 1220 – spring 1222 * Marino Storlato, spring 1222 – autumn 1223 * Jacopo Tiepolo (2nd tenure), autumn 1223 – at least until autumn 1224 * Teofilo Zeno, before August 1228 * Giovanni Querini, before September 1228 – spring 1229 * Romeo Querini, May 1229 – 1231 *Teofilo Zeno (2nd tenure), in 1235, possibly until 1237 * Albertino Morosini, 1237 – 1239 * Giovanni Michiel, 1239–1241; in 1241 he led a Venetian fleet that defeated a larger Nicaean fleet. * Giacomo Baseggio, uncertain, likely sometime between 1243 – autumn 1246 * Egidio Querini, attested April 1247, sometime between 1245–1248 * Marco Gausoni, spring 1250 – autumn 1251 * Antonio Soranzo, autumn 1251 – spring 1254 * Pietro Foscarini, spring 1254 – spring 1256 * Jacopo Dolfin, spring 1256 – 1258 * Marco Gradenigo, September 1258 – July 1261

References

Sources

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