Johannes Tradonicus

Influence of the Byzantine Empire and Venice around 840

Johannes Tradonicus , in the closest sources simply Iohannes († 863 in Venice ), was, according to the state-controlled historiography of the Republic of Venice , often referred to as a tradition for simplicity , from 836 until his death, co-dog of his father. This was the Doge Petrus , mostly called "Pietro Tradonico" following the tradition. Peter ruled from 836 to 864, and towards the end of his rule there were strong tensions between the leading families, such as those that cropped up again and again in the Venetian lagoon , which ultimately led to his murder.

Johannes is considered a fellow dog, not a doge. This is an institution that was mostly filled out by the sons of the rulers and that was common at the time. For centuries these did not appear in the doge lists, unless they had outlived their father and ruled alone as doge. In contrast to this historiographical convention, Iohannes is explicitly referred to as dux (Doge) in the most recent sources , as well as in a document created during his lifetime . His son, in turn, was baptized by the Emperor in 855/860 during a visit by Ludwig II and his wife Engilberga , but nothing more is known about the child. Johannes emerged as a naval leader in the fight against Slavic pirates on the east coast of the Adriatic and against the Saracens , against whom he suffered a heavy defeat in 840.

family

Johannes and Petrus came from a family that originally came from the Istrian town of Pula and settled in Equilio, today's Jesolo , and later on the island of Rialto . The seat of the Doge had been there since around 811. Possibly Petrus came into consideration as a candidate mainly because his family was not one of those who had excelled in the dispute over the establishment of a dynasty by the Particiaco family and could therefore be considered neutral, as Donald M. Nicol speculated. In the struggle for the establishment of a dynasty that shaped Venice's history for centuries and repeatedly turned the influential families against each other, and which made them look for external allies and advocates, the Tradonico played, even if a Carolingian emperor of the Doge's grandson (or his granddaughter) and his son was a fellow dog, no matter. The grandfather Peter was murdered, his son John died shortly before him, the sources say nothing about the whereabouts of the grandchild. The name Tradonico was later often equated with that of the noble family Gradenigo , but it did not appear in the sources until the first half of the 13th century.

Life and co-rule

In the year 836, John was made a fellow doge. The chronicle of Johannes Diaconus , which was created around 1000 and following this model, Andrea Dandolo , names this survey and immediately afterwards the 3rd year of the rule of Peter, in which he opened the war against Slavic pirates: “Cui successit quidam nobilissimus, Peter nomine, qui Iohannem suum filium consortem in honore habere voluit. Iste namque tercio sui ducatus anno Sclaveniam bellicosis navibus expugnaturum adivit. ”(Liber II, 49). In the following years the Doge undertook further campaigns against the aforementioned Slavs , more precisely against the Narentans living in Dalmatia , who disrupted maritime trade in the Adriatic with their repeated attacks on Venetian ships . Their power increased with the advance of the Saracens , as the Islamicized Berbers and Arabs were called. These penetrated into the northern Adriatic in the 840s and defeated the Venetian fleet, which in turn encouraged the Narentans to make new raids.

Campaigns between Byzantium and the Abbasid Empire, 837–838

Coin from the time of Louis the Pious (814–840)

Even Byzantium to the lagoon still belonged formally came under pressure, because at the same time of the kingdom of Arab armies conquered the east, the cities Ankyra and Amorion deep in the heartland of the empire. The Paulikians , a Christian group against the state-supported orthodoxy, also founded their own state. In response to the state repression, they conquered parts of Asia Minor in league with Arab powers. As a result, the west of the empire, particularly remote Venice, was left without Byzantine protection. Emperor Theophilos (829-842) in turn sought help at the court of Louis the Pious (814-840), even at the Umayyad court of Cordoba , to take action against the Saracens, who had also begun to conquer Sicily since 827. When these Saracens began to occupy Apulia from around 839 and the emirate of Taranto was established there, the emperor even asked Venice for help. Patricius Theophilos stayed in Venice for a year to negotiate.

In 840 the Doge had his son John lead a fleet train against the Saracens of southern Italy, who tried to establish themselves permanently in the course of their expansion in the form of the two emirates of Bari and Taranto . For this he was awarded the high title of spatharios by the emperor . But the joint Byzantine-Venetian fleet suffered a loss-making defeat and pirates now also robbed the upper Adriatic. In 842 the Venetian fleet suffered another defeat there off the island of Sansego south of Istria. Trade in the Adriatic threatened to break down and the lagoon itself was threatened. After this news, the sources become almost completely silent for a few decades.

Around 860 - the information in the historiography deviates from each other by a few years - the Carolingian Emperor Ludwig II and his wife Angilberga were received by the two doges on the southern edge of their territory in the monastery of S. Michele in Brondolo . The couple stayed in the house of the two Doges for three days and became godparents of a child of the younger Doge, as Andrea Dandolo and other chroniclers, especially late medieval chroniclers, report. Formally, the meeting corresponded to an encounter between sovereigns of equal rank. As a result, Ludwig recognized Venice as an independent territory with which it was to come to a 'fortification of peace', so the view of the later Venetian historians. For the purpose of the meeting, it says in somewhat clauses: “ad dilectionis seu pacis vinculum corroborandum” (meaning: “to strengthen friendship and peace”).

In 863, a year before his father, John died. Among the tribunes, which signed many documents, Peter appears as "excellentissimo imperiali consoli", his son John as "gloriosus dux Veneciarum", as in the testament of Bishop Ursus from the year 855.

In the unrest and factional struggles that followed, the old Doge was accused of injustice and presumption. The fact that he kept a bodyguard may also have heightened suspicions. On September 13, 864 he was murdered by a group of conspirators while leaving the church of San Zaccaria .

reception

For Venice at the time of Doge Andrea Dandolo , the interpretation of the rule of Peter and John Tradonicus, who due to the death of the latter did not belong to one of the dynasty-forming families such as the Particiachi or Galbaii, was of symbolic importance in several respects . The attention of the political leadership bodies, long established in the middle of the 14th century, which have steered historiography especially since Andrea Dandolo, focused on the development of the constitution (in this case the question of the disturbed, extremely conflictual formation of dynasties, which this family might also have undertaken, but also the role of the people's assembly, the question of the fellow doge), the internal disputes between the possessores (represented in the family name), i.e. the increasingly self-contained group of the haves who at the same time occupied political power, but also the shifts in power within the lagoon (the increasing importance of Rialto, the dwindling one of Malamocco and Eraclea), the Adriatic and the eastern Mediterranean as well as Italy. The questions of sovereignty between the overpowering empires, of law from their own roots, and therefore of the derivation and legitimation of their territorial claims, were always the focus, even if the pressure of the great powers was less noticeable at this time. The Franks accepted contractual recognition, Byzantium awarded the highest honorary titles.

The oldest vernacular chronicle, the Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo from the late 14th century, depicts the events on a very personal level that has long been customary in this period, which once again gave the rulers greater individual power. The doge, who, according to the author, ruled for “XXVIIII” years, ie 29 years, is called “Pietro Trandominico”, also “Piero”. Accordingly, he and his son John were elected doges by the people's assembly, provided that this can be inferred from the words "[con] consentimento del povolo", for example: with the consent of the people. Because of his successes against "Sclavi" and "Narantani", the Doge's son was given great honors by the Byzantine Patrizius Theodosios, who was present in Venice from 840 to 841. John drove with 60 ships against the Saracens of Taranto , but the fleet was defeated, so that the pirates could plunder as far as Dalmatia and Romagna in return . After the death of his son John, who was buried in San Zaccaria, the doge made himself hated by everyone, as he and his personal guard had committed a great deal of injustice against many.

Pietro Marcello reports something similar . In 1502, in his work, later translated into Volgare under the title Vite de'prencipi di Vinegia , he led the Doge in the section “Pietro Tradonico Doge XIII.” This “prese per compagno Giouanni suo figliuolo”, so he took his son Johannes as co-ruler. Afterwards Marcello reports nothing more about this son.

The chronicle of Gian Giacomo Caroldo , completed in 1532, reports significantly different and unusually detailed. Caroldo thinks "Pietro Tradonigo" was made a Doge by the people in 836 for his services - as one text variant knows ("fù creato dal popolo"). He was the son of "nobil parenti vennuti da Puola et longamente a Iesolo dimoranti", so his noble parents came from Pola and had lived in Iesolo for a long time. Then they moved to Rialto. In the third year of his ducat - a text variant already inserts that he was able to appoint his son Johannes as “consorte del ducato” - he drove with a strong fleet to Dalmatia against the “Schiavoni” to prevent them from entering the Venetian ships attacks (“offender li navili di Venetiani”). After changing battles, from which the Saracens were finally driven out of Apulia, the doge managed to get his son to be used as a "consorte", as a fellow doge. The two then built the St. Mark's Church ("edificorono"). After another violent fighting between the six leading families in the city, the Doges sent “Deodato Orator suo” to his court when Emperor Ludwig, Lothar's son, was staying in Mantua . This obtained a privilege for the properties located in the empire, as it had already been agreed with the 'Greeks' ("per patto con li Greci fermato"). The emperor came to Venice with the empress, “sua consorte”, and was received by the “doges father and son” (“Duci padre et figliuolo”) in large company at the church of San Michiel di Brondolo, from where they received great honors to be directed to the city of Rialto ("Città di Rialto"). As a sign of his benevolence, the emperor gave birth to a son of the Doge, it is said. - Pope Benedict III. fled from Rome to Venice, as it was the safest city ("fuggì da Roma et venne a Venetia, come a città più dell'altre sicura"), and was honored there by the Doges and the whole city. There he visited San Zaccaria , where, at the request of the abbess Agnese Morosina, he agreed to send these relics "di San Pancratio et di Santa Sabina" to the monastery. - Finally Giovanni Tradonico died, the ducat stayed with his father, who was again in the 29th year of his reign, on September 13th, after Vespers in San Zaccaria, when leaving the church "da alcuni iniquissimi huomini fù crudelmente morto". After the 'cruel' murder, he was buried in San Zaccaria.

For the Frankfurt lawyer Heinrich Kellner , who made the Venetian chronicle known in the German-speaking area, where he largely followed Marcello, in his Chronica published in 1574 this is Warhaffte actual and short description, all of them live in Venice , "Petrus Tradonicus the Twelfth Hertzog" . Kellner adds laconically that he was "a native of Pola", "and named his son Johann as a journeyman or assistant."

According to Johann Friedrich LeBret , who published his four-volume State History of the Republic of Venice from 1769 , “Peter Tradonico” was a “fiery and warlike gentleman who gave his nation something to do abroad so that it would not have much time in the state itself to commemorate disruptions. ”True to the source, LeBret reports that“ the two princes ”(p. 167) welcomed the pope“ with the greatest honors ”, and a few years later“ the two princes received the imperial couple with great pomp ”(p 169). But after "the emperor had stayed there for three days, he took the place of the patron at the baptism of a son who had been born to Duke John." The author expressly emphasizes that this was the first emperor to visit Venice. Incidentally, LeBret only mentions the death of John, without specifying the circumstances, causes or even the location.

In the encyclopedias, a brief article was generally devoted to each of the 120 traditional doges, for example in Dizionario Enciclopedico delle Scienze, Lettere ed Arti by Antonio Bazzarini , published in 1835 . But these were often flawed, the authors were not always familiar with the background. In this work it is claimed that Pietro Tradonico ran against his predecessor “Giovanni Partecipazio” in an election. A little later his son was added to him as a "collega" ("gli fu dato per collega"). In 864 he was murdered by some conspiratorial nobles, and therefore - since his son had died earlier - Orso Partecipazio was elected as his successor.

In 1853, Samuele Romanin granted “Pietro Tradonico” a full 17 pages in the first volume of his ten-volume opus' Storia documentata di Venezia , but it was only when the new Emperor Ludwig II and his wife Engilberga wanted to visit Venice that Romanin first mentioned his fellow Doges as that The couple was received by the Doge and his son in Brondolo and accompanied to their accommodation in the monastery of San Michele. He stayed in the city for three days and the emperor even became the godfather of one of John's sons - after all, Romanin notes in a footnote that Johannes Diaconus only reports on the reception in Brondolo, while Andrea Dandolo knows about the splendid stay of several days. The doge's murder took place "barely a year" after the death of his son John.

August Friedrich Gfrörer († 1861) believed in his history of Venice from its founding to 1084 , which appeared eleven years after his death , that John's grandparents had moved from Pola to Iesolo , and he also relies on Dandolo's chronicle, not on the more than 300 years older of Johannes Diaconus. Gfrörer sees the driving force behind the election of the Doge as the intention to prevent the “Participazzo” from making the Doge's office their “inheritance”. The Mastalici, who had initiated the overthrow against the Particiaco, could not profit from it: “nevertheless the fruit of this deed did not benefit them, but a newcomer from Istria, who consequently did not belong to the old Venetian nobility, rose up (p . 177). ”This happened, like almost everything with Gfrörer, under pressure from Constantinople. According to him, this is supported by the fact that in the 3rd year of Tradonicos reign an imperial emissary brought with him a Byzantine title ... "and asked the Venetians to provide a fleet to fight the Saracens". The almost immediate acceptance of the son of a dog as a co-ruler also speaks in favor of recognition by the emperor. Like the Particiaco family, who continued to have great influence, he also brought relatives to the highest clerical positions. So - "at the instigation of the Doge", as Gfrörer Dandolo quotes - Dominicus became Bishop of Olivolo. For Gfrörer, the visit of the imperial couple in 855 shows the weakness of the Carolingian Empire, which “had to be flattered” in order to win Venice's support against the countless pirates, be they Slavs or Saracens. “The Byzantines no longer had to fear that Veneto would be surrendered to them by the Franks.” In 863, “the younger doge” Johannes died, the older doge Peter was murdered in 864.

Pietro Pinton translated and annotated Gfrörer's work in the Archivio Veneto in annual volumes XII to XVI. Pinton's own account, which did not appear until 1883 - also in the Archivio Veneto - came to completely different, less speculative results than Gfrörer. So he opposes the assumption of Gfrörer that the doge was of simple origin (with which Gfrörer in turn tries to prove his assumption of uninterrupted Byzantine influence), the statement of Johannes deacon, that he was "nobilissimus". In contrast to Gfrörer, who accepted recognition from Constantinople, an award by a high Byzantine title was only given three years later during the visit of Theophilos, who had inquired about a naval support against the Saracens. The author also exaggerates the hostility towards the Particiachi, of which not a single one was among the assassins of 864, although the ringleaders have been passed down by name (p. 291).

In 1861, in his Il Palazzo ducale di Venezia , Francesco Zanotto described the visit of the imperial couple according to the Dandolo chronicle by the “dogi padri e figlio” (p. 32) in a relatively detailed manner, while Johannes Diaconus only mentioned the visit to Brondolo laconically. The emperor also raised a son of John from the baptismal font. After him, when he was elected his father, Johannes became a doge who had been asked. And despite the sad examples in the past, he was acknowledged to endow his son with the same power (p. 30). A third mention was made of Johannes after the murder of his father, who had just lost his son a year earlier.

In 1867, Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, in the first volume of his Storia dei Dogi di Venezia, expressed the view that the Doge, elected in 837, came from an illustrious family who had come from Pola to Rialto via Equilio ( Jesolo ). He acted on the example of his predecessors ("imitando lo esempio") to raise a son to be a fellow doge. As has been customary in historiography for some time, Cicogna first outlined the battles against Slavs and Saracens, whereby Byzantium only invited ("invitò") to take part in the battle for Taranto. But the combined fleets were defeated against a numerically superior enemy. In return, the winners moved 'almost to our lagoon'. Again the fleet was subject to the Saracens, this time in the Quarnero, the Kvarner Bay , and only huge ships of unprecedented dimensions could secure the lagoon. Then the author made a great leap in time until the year 863, when the 'son and colleague Giovanni' died, 'of whom some assume that he was in command of the fleet off Taranto'.

Heinrich Kretschmayr even believed that the Doge came from the "old nobility". But he was less educated and could not write. The author states that the Chronicon Venetum was hostile to him (“hatred and ill will”), while Johannes Diaconus was friendly. He brought relatives to the highest positions just as much as his opponents, "surrounded himself with a Croatian bodyguard who was absolutely devoted to him". For Kretschmayr, Theophilos brought the "order" from Byzantium to take part in the campaign against the Saracens. Tradonicus waged war in the Adriatic on his own initiative, concluded contracts with foreign powers on his own. The aforementioned Carolingian imperial couple visited "the two doges Peter and Johannes", with "a grandchild of the former being born" (p. 95).

In his History of Venice says John Julius Norwich , Tradonico have been facing enormous challenges because two, if not three major pirate groups appeared in the Adriatic Sea, namely Slavs in the north, Saracens in the south, and in the wider Mediterranean also presented Vikings a posed a serious threat to trade and even to the lagoon itself. At the same time, the city's commercial success continued to attract new robbers. Apparently the Doge succeeded in spite of losing defeats on the one hand to maintain the balance between the factions, on the other hand to keep the numerous pirates under control so that the city could continue to flourish. After all, Norwich emphasizes, the Doge had the longest reign since the office was founded - he believes that after more than 50 years in the civil service, he was certainly around 80 years old. The fall took place only after the death of his son.

swell

Narrative sources

• La cronaca veneziana del diacono Giovanni , in: Giovanni Monticolo (ed.): Cronache veneziane antichissime (= Fonti per la storia d'Italia [Medio Evo], IX), Rome 1890, pp. 59–171, here: p. 112 f. (Mitherrschaft) ( digitized edition ), 117 (death) ( digitized version ).
• Luigi Andrea Berto (ed.): Giovanni Diacono, Istoria Veneticorum (= Fonti per la Storia dell'Italia medievale. Storici italiani dal Cinquecento al Millecinquecento ad uso delle scuole, 2), Zanichelli, Bologna 1999 ( text edition based on Berto in the Archivio della Latinità Italiana del Medioevo (ALIM) from the University of Siena).
• Roberto Cessi (ed.): Origo civitatum Italiae seu Venetiarum (Chron. Altinate et Chron. Gradense) , Rome 1933, pp. 29, 117, 129.
• Ester Pastorello (Ed.): Andrea Dandolo, Chronica per extensum descripta aa. 460–1280 dC , (= Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XII, 1), Nicola Zanichelli, Bologna 1938, pp. 150–155 (p. 154, lines 17–20 meeting between the imperial couple and the two doges in Brondolo). ( Digital copy, p. 150 f. )
• Șerban V. Marin (Ed.): Gian Giacomo Caroldo. Istorii Veneţiene , Vol. I: De la originile Cetăţii la moartea dogelui Giacopo Tiepolo (1249) , Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Bucharest 2008, pp. 58–61 ( online )

Legislative sources, letters

• Roberto Cessi (Ed.): Documenti relativi alla storia di Venezia anteriori al Mille , Padua 1942, Vol. I, pp. 101-108 ("840, 23 febbraio. Pactum Lotharii") ( digital copy ).
• Franco Gaeta (Ed.): S. Lorenzo , Venice 1960, S. XV, 11.
• Theodor Schieffer : The documents of Lothar I and Lothar II , MGH, Diplomata, The documents of the Carolingians , III, Berlin / Zurich 1966, p. 171.
• Alfred Boretius , Viktor Krause (ed.): Capitularia regum Francorum , MGH, Legum sectio II, II, Hannover 1897, pp. 130, 136 f.

literature

• Marco Pozza: Tradònico, Pietro , Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 96 (2019)
• Tradònico, Pietro , treccani.it (very brief description)

Remarks

1. ^ Donald M. Nicol : Byzantium and Venice. A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations , Cambridge University Press, 1988, paperback 1992, p. 26.
2. ↑ RI I, 3.1 n. 208, in: Regesta Imperii Online, URI: http://www.regesta-imperii.de/id/0860-00-00_1_0_1_3_1_4424_208 (accessed on February 12, 2020).
3. ^ Franco Gaeta (ed.): S. Lorenzo , Venice 1960, p. XV, 11.
4. ^ Roberto Pesce (Ed.): Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo. Origini - 1362 , Centro di Studi Medievali e Rinascimentali “Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna”, Venice 2010, pp. 35–38.
5. ↑ According to the editor, this "con" was added by another hand above the line (p. 35, note c).
6. ↑ Pietro Marcello: Vite de'prencipi di Vinegia in the translation of Lodovico Domenichi, Marcolini, 1558, pp 22-24 ( digitized ).
7. ↑ Șerban V. Marin (Ed.): Gian Giacomo Caroldo. Istorii Veneţiene , Vol. I: De la originile Cetăţii la moartea dogelui Giacopo Tiepolo (1249) , Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Bucharest 2008, pp. 58-61 ( online ).
8. ↑ Heinrich Kellner : Chronica that is Warhaffte actual and short description, all life in Venice , Frankfurt 1574, p. 8v – 9r ( digitized, p. 8v ).
9. ↑ Johann Friedrich LeBret: State history of the Republic of Venice, from its origin to our times, in which the text of the abbot L'Augier is the basis, but its errors are corrected, the incidents are presented in a certain and from real sources, and after a Ordered the correct time order, at the same time adding new additions to the spirit of the Venetian laws and secular and ecclesiastical affairs, to the internal state constitution, its systematic changes and the development of the aristocratic government from one century to another , 4 vols., Johann Friedrich Hartknoch , Riga and Leipzig 1769–1777, Vol. 1, Leipzig and Riga 1769, pp. 167–169 ( digitized version ).
10. ↑ Art. Tradònico (Pietro) , in: Antonio Bazzarini: Dizionario Enciclopedico delle Scienze, Lettere ed Arti , 8 vol., Vol. 8, Venice 1835, p. 549 ( digitized version ).
11. ^ Samuele Romanin : Storia documentata di Venezia , 10 vols., Pietro Naratovich, Venice 1853–1861 (2nd edition 1912–1921, reprint Venice 1972), vol. 1, Venice 1853, pp. 173–189 ( digitized version ).
12. ↑ August Friedrich Gfrörer : History of Venice from its foundation to the year 1084. Edited from his estate, supplemented and continued by Dr. JB Weiß , Graz 1872, p. 176 f. ( Digitized version ).
13. ^ Pietro Pinton: La storia di Venezia di AF Gfrörer , in: Archivio Veneto 25.2 (1883) 288-313, here: p. 289 (part 2) ( digitized version ).
14. ↑ Francesco Zanotto: Il Palazzo ducale di Venezia , Vol. 4, Venice 1861, pp. 30–34 ( digitized version ).
15. ^ Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna : Storia dei Dogi di Venezia , Vol. 1, Venice 1867, o. P.
16. ^ Heinrich Kretschmayr : History of Venice , 3 vol., Vol. 1, Gotha 1905, p. 92–.
17. ^ John Julius Norwich : A History of Venice , Penguin, London 2003.