The Podestà of Constantinople was the official in charge of

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

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 Byzanti ...

and the Venetian quarter of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

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 recovered by the Byzantine Greeks in 1261 ...

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

Doge of Venice The Doge of Venice ( ; vec, Doxe de Venexia ; it, Doge di Venezia ; all derived from Latin ', "military leader"), sometimes translated as Duke (compare the Italian '), was the chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 a ...

. 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 ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξιος Κομνηνός, 1057 – 15 August 1118; Latinized Alexius I Comnenus) was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the first emperor of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during ...

. 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, 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. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the c ...

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 Constantinople ...

, and pushed through its own candidate,

Baldwin of Flanders Baldwin I ( nl, Boudewijn; french: Baudouin; July 1172 – ) was the first Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople; Count of Flanders (as Baldwin IX) from 1194 to 1205 and Count of Hainaut (as Baldwin VI) from 1195-1205. Baldwin was on ...

, 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, 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 Four ...

as '

By the Grace of God By the Grace of God ( la, Dei Gratia, abbreviated D.G.) is a formulaic phrase used especially in Christian monarchies as an introductory part of the full styles of a monarch. For example in England and later the United Kingdom, the phrase was fo ...

Podestà Podestà (, English: Potestate, Podesta) 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 city ...

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 A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

, with a composition similar to the council of the Doge in Venice: judges (), councillors (), a treasurer (), and a prosecutorial magistrate (). According to the 16th-century historian Daniele Barbaro, 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 Pietro Ziani (died in Venice, 13 March 1230) was the 42nd Doge of Venice from 15 August 1205 to 1229, succeeding Enrico Dandolo. He was the son of Doge Sebastian Ziani of the very rich noble family. He was married to Maria Baseggio and Consta ...

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 origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...

'' 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 ( gr, Βαγενετία, Βαγενιτία) 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 at ...

, and

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

, 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 Sea) ...

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

Michael I Komnenos Doukas Michael I Komnenos Doukas, Latinized as Comnenus Ducas ( el, Μιχαήλ Κομνηνός Δούκας, Mikhaēl Komnēnos Doukas), and in modern sources often recorded as Michael I Angelos, a name he never used, was the founder and first ruler ...

, 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 Marco Sanudo (c. 1153 – between 1220 and 1230, most probably 1227) was the creator and first Duke of the Duchy of the Archipelago, after the Fourth Crusade. Maternal nephew of Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo, he was a participant in the Fourth C ...

, who founded the

Duchy of Naxos The Duchy of the Archipelago ( el, Δουκάτο του Αρχιπελάγους, it, Ducato dell'arcipelago), also known as Duchy of Naxos or Duchy of the Aegean, was a maritime state created by Venetian interests in the Cyclades archipelago ...

, 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 The Treaty of Zadar, also known as the Treaty of Zara, was a peace treaty signed in Zadar, Dalmatia on February 18, 1358 by which the Venetian Republic lost influence over its Dalmatian holdings. The Treaty of Zadar ended hostilities between Loui ...

, 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 ( el, Μιχαὴλ Δούκας Ἄγγελος Κομνηνὸς Παλαιολόγος, Mikhaēl Doukas Angelos Komnēnos Palaiologos; 1224 – 11 December 1282) reigned as the co-emperor of the Empire ...

, 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 ...

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

List of known Podestàs

, 1205–1207 *Ottaviano Quirino, *Marino Dandolo, unknown date, but probably between Quirino and Tiepolo * Jacopo Tiepolo, in 1219–1220/21; during his tenure he concluded a

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations An international organization or international o ...

with the

Empire of Nicaea The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire is the conventional historiographic name for the largest of the three Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C. M. Woodhouse ...

, and received the title of Despot. *Marino Michiel, 1221 *Marino Storlato, 1222–1223 * Jacopo Tiepolo (2nd tenure), 1224 *Teofilo Zeno, before September 1228 *Giovanni Quirino, in September 1228 *R. Quirino, in May 1229 *Teofilo Zeno (2nd tenure), in 1235, possibly until 1238 *Albertino Morosini, in 1238 *

Giovanni Michiel Giovanni Michiel (* 1446 or 1447, died 1503) was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal and bishop. Biography Giovanni Michiel was born in Venice sometime between April 1446 and April 1447, the son of Lorenzo Michiel and Nicolosa Barbo, sister of t ...

, 1240–1241; in 1241 he led a Venetian fleet that defeated a larger Nicaean fleet. *Egidio Quirino, in April 1247 *Jacopo Dolfin, in 1256 *

Marco Gradenigo Marco Gradenigo was a 13th-century Venetian nobleman, senior provincial administrator in the Venetian overseas empire and a military commander. He was involved in three major conflicts: the War of the Euboeote Succession, where Gradenigo organized ...

, 1259–1261

References

Sources

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