Pietro Ziani (Doge)

Pietro Ziani (* approx. 1153/1155 ; † March 14, 1229 in Venice ), the son of Sebastiano Ziani , was the 42nd Doge of Venice from 1205 to 1229 .

family

Pietro Ziani came from a Venetian family that quickly produced two doges, Pietro himself and his father Sebastiano . After a gradual social and economic rise from the second half of the 11th century, the family only gained political importance in the 12th and 13th centuries. She lived in the parish of S. Giustina with great, downright incredible wealth. The last important representative was Marco, the son of Doge Pietro, who died young. After his death in 1254 there were only insignificant branch lines in the family. The Venetian opera composers of the late 17th century Pietro Andrea Ziani (1616–1684) and Marcantonio Ziani (1653–1715) have nothing to do with the noble Doge family. Not to be confused with the Ziani family are the Venetian aristocratic families Zeno or Geno and Zane.

Life

Pietro was probably the older son of Sebastiano Ziani and his wife Froyza; his siblings were Giacomo and Mabiliota. Pietro and his brother have been running his father's business since 1173. In 1177 they dissolved their economic community, and from then on each ran alone. Pietro Ziani married Maria (probably from the Basilio / Baseggio family) who died around 1221 or shortly before that. The marriage remained childless. In his second marriage he married Konstanze, daughter of King Tancred of Sicily, around 1221 . From the marriage came the son Marco and the daughters Marchesina, married Badoer, and Maria.

Pietro Ziani was considered the richest Venetian of his time. He had inherited a large part of his fortune from his father Sebastiano, who had acquired it mainly through long-distance trading (see Venice's economic history ). Pietro was also active in long-distance trade, but also had rich property in the center of Venice (tenement houses), on the islands of the Venetian lagoon (salt pans, vineyards) and the mainland (farms, mills).

In September 1228 he made his will, in which he considered nearly a hundred Venetian churches, monasteries and hospitals, but also numerous relatives and friends. The main heir was his underage son Marco. In February 1229 the doge is said to have abdicated. He died on March 14, 1229. He was buried in the church of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in his father's sarcophagus.

Political career

Pietro Ziani gained his first political and diplomatic experience in the run-up to the Peace of Venice, which in 1177 between Pope Alexander III. and Emperor Friedrich I (Barbarossa) in Venice: he received the Pope together with his brother Giacomo in the monastery of San Nicolò on the Lido and escorted him to the city.

A large number of political offices and diplomatic missions followed: in 1184 he was envoy of Doge Orio Mastropiero in Constantinople, 1184 to 1197 Vogt of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore. He was iudex , high official of the city and political advisor to the Doge in various years between 1186 and 1203, since 1190 Count of Rab (Italian Arbe), the island off the Dalmatian coast under Venetian rule. In 1192 he belonged to the electoral college that Enrico Dandolo elected Doge, in 1201 he became Podestà of the neighboring city of Padua and in 1205 a member of the Small Council .

On August 5, 1205, Pietro Ziani was elected Doge, succeeding Enrico Dandolo, under whose significant participation the crusaders conquered the cities of Zara and Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade . Pietro Ziani allegedly made the daring suggestion to move Venice to Constantinople, as its location was strategically much more favorable than that of the lagoon city, which is equally threatened by land and sea . The Venice Grand Council allegedly rejected the proposal by a majority of only one vote.

During his tenure, he largely successfully overcame the problems that the victorious outcome of the Fourth Crusade brought with it for Venice: the founding and expansion of the Venetian colonial empire in the Levant, battles against rivals Genoa and Pisa and against the Byzantine Empire of Nikaia for control of trade in the Aegean and Black Seas.

In 1224, the first Venetian water authority was established under Ziani, which after 1500 became the collegio solenne delle acque . It was their job to keep the canals free of mud and to make them navigable. In 1226 he brought the Franciscans to Venice and he was the founder of the San Lazaro Hospice for lepers .

swell

• Ester Pastorello (Ed.): Andrea Dandolo, Chronica per extensum descripta aa. 460-1280 dC , (= Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XII, 1), Nicola Zanichelli, Bologna 1938, pp. 281-291. ( Digitized, p. 280 f. )

literature

• Silvano Borsari : Una famiglia veneziana del medioevo: gli Ziani , in: Archivio Veneto 145 (1978) 27-72.
• Irmgard Fees : Wealth and Power in Medieval Venice. The Ziani family , De Gruyter, 1988.

Web links

Commons : Pietro Ziani  - collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Enrico Dandolo	Doge of Venice 1205–1229	Jacopo Tiepolo