Renier Zen

Renier Zens coat of arms

Renier Zen († July 7, 1268 in Venice ) was the 45th Doge of Venice . He ruled from 1253 to 1268. During his reign, Venice's first war against the Republic of Genoa fell .

family

The Zen or Zeno, who originally came from Padua , had settled on the island of Burano and had been on the Rialto since the 9th century . They belonged to the richest patrician families of the time and owned numerous properties in Venice and land in Istria in the 13th century .

Life

Zeno had served the republic as a diplomat and as captain general, Capitano general da mar . In 1243 he put down a revolt in the city of Zara in Dalmatia . He was a member of the Venetian delegation at the 13th General Council of Lyons , which had only half-heartedly supported the deposition of Emperor Frederick II pushed through by Pope Innocent IV . Zen was the friend and adviser ( consigliere ) of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo . He was Podestà of Bologna and Verona and last of Fermo near Ancona when he was elected Doge on January 25, 1253.

The Doge's Office

The Venetian law of the sea was codified under Zen. In the code of law published in 1255, the rights and obligations of the ship's command and crew were laid down. The owner of the ship therefore had the same duties as a captain. The captain of a ship, known as nauclearus , only had the rights and functions of a first officer and was subordinate to the ship's owner. The crew had to arm themselves at their own expense, so they had to be deployed in combat in the event of war and had the right to vote in all decisions to be made by majority vote. The sailors and rowers had the right to trade on their own account. Any crew member hired by the ship's owner or captain was sworn in to the law.

In terms of foreign policy, Zen’s reign was determined by the first war with Genoa for supremacy in the Mediterranean area and by battles with supporters of Frederick II in northern Italy . The Ghibelline Ezzelino da Romano had occupied various cities in Lombardy , which Venice regarded as his own sphere of influence. Between 1254 and 1260 a coalition was formed between the Republic and Treviso , Vicenza , Mantua and the Vatican , which Ezzelino was able to crush.

The second problem was the Republic of Genoa . In 1257 Genoa plundered the Venetian base of San Giovanni d'Acri on the coast of Palestine , disregarding existing treaties . Venice sent a fleet to Palestine under the command of Lorenzo Tiepolo , who would later succeed Zen in the Doge Office. After a sea battle in which Genoa lost 24 galleys and suffered a crushing defeat, San Giovanni d'Acri was retaken.

More dramatic for Venice's economy were the events in Constantinople , where Genoa had brought Michael VIII Palaeologus to the throne in 1261 and Venice's property in the city had been confiscated. By owning Caffa , Genoa also affected Venice's trade in the Black Sea , through which the spice trade with the Orient was carried out. Barriers to trade, combined with economic losses for the Venetians, the decline in tax revenue and the collection of new taxes led to riots in the city and bloody arguments among the patricians, in which the doge was almost lynched.

swell

• Ester Pastorello (Ed.): Andrea Dandolo, Chronica per extensum descripta aa. 460-1280 dC , (= Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XII, 1), Nicola Zanichelli, Bologna 1938, pp. 304-315. ( Digital copy, p. 304 f. )

literature

• Fabio Barry: “Disecta membra. Ranieri Zeno, the Imitation of Constantinople, the Spolia Style, and Justice at San Marco ”, in: H. Maguire, R. Nelson (Eds.): San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice , Dumbarton Oaks Papers (2010) 7-62. ( academia.edu )
• Andrea Da Mosto : I Dogi di Venezia , Venice 1939, reprint Florence 1983.
• Frederic C. Lane : Venice Maritime Republic , Munich 1980.

Web links

Commons : Renier Zen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Marino Morosini	Doge of Venice 1253–1268	Lorenzo Tiepolo