Antonio Priuli

Antonio Priuli (1548-1623)

Antonio Priuli (born May 10, 1548 in Venice ; † August 12, 1623 there ) was the 94th Doge of Venice . He ruled from 1618 to 1623. His reign was marked by tensions with the Spanish crown.

family

The Priuli belonged to the new families , they have been notarized in Venice since 1297 and had made a large fortune as grain traders, landowners and horse breeders. They were once among the richest families in the republic, but had meanwhile had to borrow money from the banks in order to maintain their social status. The Priuli provided a total of three doges, in addition to Antonio the brothers Lorenzo and Gerolamo in the middle of the 16th century.

Life

Antonio was the son of Giovanni and Elisabetta Cappello and married to Elena Barbarigo , daughter of Admiral Agostino Barbarigo , who died in the Battle of Lepanto . Two doges had also emerged from the Elenas family. Antonio's older brother Michele was Bishop of Vicenza . The couple had twelve or fourteen children, including seven daughters who became nuns. Before his election, Antonio was ambassador to Henry IV of France and from 1603 procurator .

The Doge's Office

Antonio Priuli was the third Doge of 1618 after Giovanni Bembo and Nicolò Donà. He was elected in the first ballot on May 17th. After his election, he showed himself to be very generous towards the Venetian people, which earned him great sympathy, but put an even greater strain on his financial situation. Since he succeeded in marrying his son Girolamo to a wealthy heiress from the Dolfin family, the family's financial situation stabilized again, but his descendants died out in the grandchildren's generation. Two other sons were priests , but one of them (Matteo) had to renounce his post as cardinal , which he had apparently only received with financial tuition from his father. The other - Agostino - was Bishop of Bergamo .
Domestically, during his reign there were a number of proceedings against various members of the Nobili who had to answer before the powerful Council of Ten for conspiracies. These practices are indicative of the tension and rivalries that existed between individual families. They blackened each other anonymously to the authorities, and quite a few could not prove their innocence and were convicted. Antonio too had to answer to the Council of Ten because of the affair surrounding his son's election as cardinal. The Venetian envoy in Rome , Renier Zen, accused the son of the Dog of being involved in a conspiracy with the Pope against Venice.

Antonio Priuli died on August 12, 1623. It is not known where he was buried.

photos

• Leandro dal Ponte: Double portrait of Doge Antonio Priuli with an unknown procurator. Accademia Gallery , Venice. Exhibited in the Palazzo Correr in Venice

See also

• Antonio Foscarini

literature

• Andrea da Mosto: I Dogi di Venezia. Florence 1983.
• Helmut Dumler: Venice and the Doges. Düsseldorf 2001.

predecessor	Office	successor
Nicolò Donà	Doge of Venice 1618–1623	Francesco Contarini