Andrea Dandolo (Duca di Candia)

Andrea Dandolo (* before 1248 in Venice ; † September 1298 near Curzola ) was a member of one of the most influential families in Venice, Podestà of various cities on the Istrian peninsula , finally "Duke of Kandia" and fleet leader of the Republic of Venice . His political career began as the son of Doge Giovanni Dandolo , which made him Duca di Candia , lord of the colonial empire of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. During the second war between Genoa and Venice (1294–1299) he was killed as a result of what was probably the greatest naval battle of the Middle Ages, which took place on what is now the Croatian island of Korčula.

Life

Trade routes of Genoa and Venice

Andrea Dandolo belonged to the San Moisè branch of the influential Dandolo family, the most important representative of which was probably the Doge Enrico Dandolo , who held the office from 1192 to 1205. He is considered to be the most energetic operator of the conquest of Constantinople in the course of the Fourth Crusade and the founding of the Latin Empire , which however disappeared again in 1261. Even after that, those areas of the Byzantine Empire , which fell to Venice in 1204 , remained predominantly under the rule of the Serenissima , as Venice is often called, or of Venetian families.

Andrea Dandolo was in turn the eldest son of Giovanni Dandolo , Doge from 1280 to 1289. In the sources he appears in the years 1264 to 1268 with the additional remark that he was the son of the Doge, while in 1268 and 1269 he was only known as “Andreas Dandulus " to be led. He also uses the nickname Calo , which later became Calvo (bald). We hear nothing of his political activities from the years 1269 to 1274.

But from 1274 he took on important functions, such as that of a castellan of Koron and Modon , the double fortress on the Peloponnese , which was of great importance for the Venetian trade in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1276 he became Bailò of Negroponte , and in the same year he took over the post of Podestà of Montone, a city on Istria that had just come to Venice . In the ongoing fighting on the peninsula near Venice, the Count of Gorizia and the Patriarch of Aquileia were the main opponents, who supported the cities in their efforts to change dependency against Venice for more than a decade. Andrea Dandolo gained her first military experience. Hardly replaced by a successor, as was customary in Venice, he led an embassy to the court of Charles I of Anjou , who had defeated the Hohenstaufen in southern Italy in 1266 and 1268 , and who was preparing the conquest of Constantinople and the re-establishment of the Latin Empire.

When his father was elected Doge in 1280, this also helped Andrea Dandolo's career, because he was raised to Duca di Candia , civil and military lord of Crete with residence in the capital, today's Heraklion . This was of particular importance as Crete was the centerpiece of the Venetian colonial empire . In 1281 he returned to Venice and took his seat on the Grand Council until 1282. In 1283 he went to Istria for the second time, this time as the first Podestà of Pirano , with which he again devoted himself to these battles. But after that he received no more important office during his father's dogat.

Zecchino minted at the time of Doge Pietro Gradenigo (1289–1311)

It was only under his successor Piero Gradenigo in 1291 that he received the post of captain of the infantry in the war against Padua . In 1292 he was again elected Duca di Candia in the Grand Council . The importance of this office had increased enormously with the loss of the last Christian fortress in the Holy Land that had a port, namely Acre . This loss prompted not only Venice to look for new ways of accessing the Central and South Asian markets, but Genoa as well . Andrea Dandolo remained Duca until 1296 , when he took over the management of a fleet that year. With their help he succeeded in driving the Genoese out of the Adriatic Sea and the waters around Sicily . This success prompted the Serenissima to him as Capitano Generale for Admiral to appoint the entire fleet.

Both maritime powers were now looking for a final decision at sea. At the beginning of autumn 1298 a Genoese fleet invaded the Adriatic Sea under the command of the Lamba Doria . Although the sources about the size of the fleet are contradictory, it is assumed that the Venetians led 90 and the Genoese 80 war galleys in the battle off the island of Curzola . In this sea battle, which took place on September 8th, and which was also the largest sea battle between the two sea cities, the Genoese won. Thousands of seafarers were killed and thousands were taken prisoner. Among the prisoners who were shipped to Genoa was Marco Polo , who was supposed to write his book Il Milione , which changed the world forever, with the help of the writer Rustichello while in Genoa .

There are also contradicting statements about the further fate of Dandolo. According to some sources, he was killed in battle, according to others, he survived a few days to die of a fever or injuries suffered. According to others, he is said to have killed himself in pain over the defeat and loss of the fleet.

swell

The oldest sources are the manuscripts in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana under the signature Mss. Ital., Cl. VII, 926 (8595) and Mss. Ital., Cl. VII, 16 (= 8305), the Marco Barbaro, Genealogie delle famiglie Patrizie Venete fino al 1750 , vol. II, f. 26v. or Girolamo Alessandro Cappellari Vivaro: Campidoglio veneto in cui si danno l'armi, l'origine, la serie degl'uomini illustri della maggior parte delle famiglie cospicue so estinte come viventi, tanto cittadine, come forestiere, che hanno goduto, e che godono della nobiltà patrizia di Venezia , vol. II, f. Name 4v and 12r. Another manuscript is in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (Vind. 6092). The Andreae Danduli Chronica per extensum descripta , pp. 322, 325, edited by Ester Pastorello , also describes the processes. The same applies to the Venetiarum historia vulgo Petro Iustiniano adiudicata , which Cessi published with Fanny Bennato.

The resolutions of the Grand Council, which Cessi also edited in 1950, are central.

literature

All of the overview works on Venetian history dealt with the wars between Venice and Genoa, in which the greatest naval battle of the Middle Ages was not of decisive importance only because the Venetians were able to avoid a weakening of their position in the next few years through clever negotiations.

• Gerhard Rösch :  Dandolo, Andrea. In: Massimiliano Pavan (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 32:  Dall'Anconata – Da Ronco. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1986.

Remarks

1. ↑ This is what Ernst Gerland called him : The archive of the Duke of Kandia in the Königl. Venice State Archives , Strasbourg 1899.
2. ^ Roberto Cessi , Fanny Bennato (ed.): Venetiarum historia vulgo Petro Iustiniano adiudicata , Padua 1964, pp. 202, 283, 301, 306.
3. ^ Roberto Cessi: Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia , Vol. I, Bologna 1950, pp. 272, 275, 278, 282, 318.