Vitale Candiano

Vitale Candiano (* around 940; † November 979 in Venice ) was her 24th doge according to the state-controlled historiography of the Republic of Venice, which is called tradition . He ruled for little more than a year, namely from September 978 to November 979. In doing so, he tried to find a balance with the Roman-German Empire , with which conflicts had arisen after the assassination of Doge Pietro IV Candiano in 976 .

The Doge's Office

Vitale was the penultimate of the Candiano doges, who continuously held this office from 887, but especially from 942 to 976. Vitale was elected in September 978 as a candidate for the opposition to the Orseolo party, which also provided a number of Doges. With Emperor Otto II , Vitale, through the mediation of his eponymous nephew , succeeded in renewing the old privileges and concluding an, albeit fragile, peace treaty. Apparently this only succeeded because said nephew, who was also Patriarch of Grado, had a good relationship with the emperor, whom he had incited against the Venice of Orseolo, which Pietro IV Candiano, his father, had overthrown and murdered. Vitale, seriously ill, resigned in November 979 after only fourteen months in office. He retired as a monk in the monastery of San Ilario near Fusina, where there was a kind of burial place of the Candiano. He died just four days after entering the monastery where he was buried. Vitales daughter Maria Candiano married the doge Pietro II Orseolo, who ruled from 991 to 1009 .

reception

Despite the brevity of his government, it was of considerable importance for the relationship with the Ottonians. For Venice in the 14th century, the interpretation given to the brief reign of Candiano was accordingly of symbolic significance in the continuum of internal and external disputes. The focus of the Chronicle of Doge Andrea Dandolo represents in perfect form the views of the long-established political leadership bodies, which have steered the writing of history especially since this Doge. His work was used again and again as a template by later chroniclers and historians, so it became extremely dominant for ideas about Venetian history. He focused on the questions of political independence between the empires, of law from its own roots, and thus of the derivation and legitimation of their territorial claims. Therefore, the recognition of the "old treaties" by the western emperors (and kings) was important. The question of the hereditary monarchy, which the Candiano tried to enforce, and which remained virulent through Vitale despite the catastrophe of 976, at the time of Andrea Dandolo was no longer in any way with the interests of the families ruling at that time, but above all with the class to bring the constitutional development in line - even if some families traced back to the protagonists, the Candiano and Orseolo. At the same time, the balance between these ambitious and dominant families remained one of the most important goals, and the derivation of the prominent position of the 'nobili' in the state was of great importance. The stages of political developments that finally led to the disempowerment of the Doge, who was increasingly assigned representative tasks, but no longer allowed independent decisions, was a further objective of the presentation. Its implementation was comparatively far advanced in the 14th century.

Italy and the Adriatic region around 1000

The oldest vernacular chronicle of Venice, the Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo from the late 14th century, depicts the processes, as does Andrea Dandolo, on a level that has long been known by individuals, especially the Doges. These even represent the temporal framework for the entire chronicle. The chronicle reports on "Vidal Candiam, ovvero Sanudo", he was elected by the whole people, "per tucto el povolo". With the consent of the people - "cum voluntade del povolo" - he allowed the patriarch of Grado of the same name to return home. He hadn't dared to return for fear of the people. He was sent to "Alemangna" by the Doge and the people in order to achieve a "reconciliare" with the emperor. “Et aproximandosi a la morte”, as he approached death, he put on the clothes of a monk and died four days later in the “monesterio de Sen Yllario”. He was buried with honor - "sepellido honorevolmente" - after he had ruled a doge for a year ("habiando ducado anno uno"). For the author, the Sanudo went back to the Candiano.

Pietro Marcello classified the Doge Pietro Orseolo as "huomo molto da bene, & giusto" in 1502 in his work later translated into Volgare under the title Vite de'prencipi di Vinegia . In order to restore freedom to the people, according to Marcello, Pietro IV Candiano was attacked and murdered in 976. Despite the successes of the new Doge "alcuni pochi tristi ministri, & autori di quel Candiano, turbarono grandemente il pacefico stato di quel reggimento" - a few sad servants, plus partisans of that Candiano, brought the peace of the state considerably in danger. Disguised, the Orseolo left Venice without saying anything to anyone and went to a monastery “in Guascogna”. Now there was again the choice of a Candiano, namely from "Vitale Candiano, doge XXIII." In the year "DCCCCLXXVIII". Through him it came to an embassy under the leadership of the patriarch of the same name to Emperor Otto II, who because of the death of Pietro Candiano "voleva male à i Venetiani" - he wanted harm to the Venetians because of the said murder. But it was possible to get him to “ritornò nell'amore ch'egli havea prima co 'Venetiani”, that is to say that he “returned to love the Venetians as before”. This was achieved “in gratia del Patriarca Vitale”, the son of the dead Doge. But then, after barely a year, the doge fell ill and, in order not to harm the republic, became a monk and withdrew to the monastery.

According to the chronicle of Gian Giacomo Caroldo , which he completed in 1532, during the siege of the Doge's Palace in 976, on the advice of “Pietro Orsiolo”, who had his house on the “rio di palazzo”, fire and other materials were used. In the course of this uprising, the doge, that is, Vital's brother, along with Vital's nephew, and his soldiers were killed. Said "Orsiolo" was elected doge a day later in a city that was badly damaged by fire. According to this chronicle, the Patriarch Vitale Candiano, who was grieving over the cruel death of his father, traveled to Saxony to see Emperor Otto II, who was also grieved by this death. Even if attacks on Orseolo were constantly being planned, as he heard, he initially remained in office, but then secretly ("occultamente") left Venice, "senza dir parola ad alcuno delli suoi", without even one of his own Word to say. He spent his last years in a Catalan monastery. Now Vital Candiano, here incorrectly “figliuolo di Pietro 3 °”, was acclaimed Doge, who was a son of Pietros IV Candiano. Thereupon the patriarch of the same name returned from Verona “con molta allegrezza”, to be soon sent by the Doge to “Otho Imperatore”. This was because of the death of Pietro Candiano full of hatred against the Venetians ("havea in grande odio Venetiani"). The patriarch returned, because he "ottenne la pace et confederatione fra l'Imperatore et Venetiani", so a peace agreement and an indeterminable "confederatione" with Emperor Otto II came about.

In the Chronica published in 1574 that is Warhaffte actual and short description, all the lives of the Frankfurt lawyer Heinrich Kellner in Venice , who based on Pietro Marcello made the Venetian chronicle known in the German-speaking area, is "Vital Candian the third and twentieth Hertzog". He officiated from 978. The new doge brought Vitale, the Patriarch of Aquileia, back from exile. The latter, in turn, went to the court of Otto II as an envoy, "who was utterly ungraceful to the Venetians because of Peter Candians' death." Vitale "alleviated Ottoni's anger" and he reconciled ("atone") with the Venetians. The decisive factor was that the envoy was a son of the “slain” Doge. In any case, the peace between Venice and the empire was renewed. But "hardly a year later Vitalis fell into a great weakness". In order to avert harm to the “community”, the doge resigned, became a monk and entered the monastery of S. Hilario, where he was finally buried.

In the translation of Alessandro Maria Vianoli's Historia Veneta , which appeared in Nuremberg in 1686 under the title Der Venetianischen Herthaben Leben / Government, und Absterben / Von dem Erste Paulutio Anafesto an / bis on the now-ruling Marcum Antonium Justiniani , the Doge becomes different by Pietro Marcello, called "Vitalis Candianus, The 24th Hertzog". In 976 Pietro Orseolo was elected, "a person of many and heartfelt virtues". Vianoli adds laconically that the Doge “entered the spiritual life and went to a monastery after Gasconia (a province in France)” (p. 148). In 978 Vitale became Candiano, "who was the brother of the unfortunate Prince Petri". So "he was unlike him in spirit / manners and demeanor / so happy / and with everyone's greatest pleasure he had also ruled the community". He said that he used the little time that was left to him "so well for internal / as well as external calm and peace." After briefly inserting the fact that the doge ended up in the monastery “S. Hilarii "withdrew (he falsely believes he was his grandson, not his nephew)," that his grandson, the Patriarch of Grado, who had previously escaped the lawful fury of the community against his father, called home again / and afterwards as an envoy / next to Petro Morosini, Fantin Gradenigo, and Stephano Caloprino, to whom Kayser Ottonem II was sent ”, with whom he“ made himself very popular in his exile ”. Although Otto was "already determined to go to war against the state" because of a number of demands / if one does not comply with him, a "reconciliation" was achieved. The Doge himself also laid the foundation for the construction of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore , “or the Church of the Greats H. Georgen has been named.” In the end, the author justified the choice of the Doge with the fact that “he understood the mistakes and mistreatment of his tortured Brother should improve and correct ”.

In 1687 Jacob von Sandrart remarked in his Opus Kurtze and increased description of the origin / recording / territories / and government of the world-famous republic of Venice that “In the year 978 (XXIII.) Vitalis Candianus, the third son of the dead Petri, who abdicated himself because of bad health / and died soon after in the 2nd year. "

From 1769 Johann Friedrich LeBret published his four-volume State History of the Republic of Venice , in which he entertained his readership with his decorative rear projections, which often "supplemented" the laconic and difficult-to-interpret sources, but which also dealt extensively with the Venetian constitution. In his opinion, Waldrada, the widow of the Doge who was murdered in 976, and the Patriarch Vitale saw in the Doge from the Orseolo family "the main driving force" of the catastrophe of 976. Vitale fled from fear of the murder of the Candiano to Saxony and has there "prayed for revenge for the murder committed on his father" (p. 222). But Otto was distracted by other business, so that “the fear of the Venetians that had been formed at first was somewhat diminished.” According to him, the Doge did nothing against the Candiani and their followers, although they intrigued against him because he feared Otto II Vitale had taken against Venice. In LeBret's view, the Orseolo finally fled from the still influential Candiani to a monastery in Catalonia . Again a Candiano was elected, which the author justifies as follows: “The Candian house had indeed been insulted in the extreme by the people, and the nephew of the chosen Doge had taken Emperor Otto the Second very against the Venetians. But it was precisely this that moved the people to get this house back on their side so that the state would have nothing to fear from enemies from abroad. They cared a great deal about the emperor's grace. ”“ It was therefore the friendship that this doge restored with the emperor Otto the second, what made his government remarkable. ”So the motive for choosing Candiano was so the writer worrying about the emperor's vengeance. The Candiano Doge sent the patriarch "to Germany to make his election known to the emperor and to ask him to give his favor to the Venetians, who pulled the Candian house out again." But the author limits his view Otto says: "However, his resentment must not have completely settled: or rather, under the following government, he used the murder of Peter Candianus as an excuse to express his hostile views and to assert his imperial sovereignty against Venice." According to LeBret The Doge, stricken with a "dangerous disease", hoped to regain his health by taking a vow, but he died after just four days.

Samuele Romanin , who depicts very detailed depictions and is more embedded in the historical context , who portrayed this epoch in 1853 in the first of ten volumes of his Storia documentata di Venezia , briefly outlined the dramatic scenes in 976 in which Pietro IV Candiano was murdered. Waldrada's requests for reparation were joined by the Gradensian patriarch Vitale, who had also fled to the imperial court (p. 251). Otto II sent corresponding demands to Venice's new doge, because he was the driving force behind the catastrophe of 976. After the Orseolo had fled, the Candiani ("congiurati") conspired against him were able to enforce their candidate. The negotiations with Emperor Otto II ultimately show that Otto remained reserved, as Romanin stated. Only because of the influence of his mother Adelheid and his wife Theophanu, but also because of the requests of the ambassadors (“preghiere di quella povera gente”), the emperor wrote, he had allowed himself to make peace and draw up treaties. Weakened, the doge withdrew to the rest of the monastery in question, where he died four days later and where he was also buried.

August Friedrich Gfrörer († 1861) assumes in his History of Venice from its founding to 1084 , which appeared eleven years after his death , that the tradition is “incomplete”, “in my opinion because the chroniclers do a lot out of state considerations have kept quiet. ”Gfrörer states about the Orseolo doge:“ Both Dandolo and chronicler Johann make a visible effort to present him as a model of piety ”(p. 317). According to the depiction of Petrus Damianus, however, the Orseolo sacrificed his house for the purpose of arson only on the condition that he would later be made a doge. Gfrörer states that he needed the help of the clergy, because Otto II, at whose court the Patriarch, and Adelheid, at whose court Waldrada had fled, faced him as powerful enemies. Gfrörer identifies the emperor as the puller in the background. So the Orseolo only had to flee, "because otherwise he would have fallen infallibly by poison or dagger". Gfrörer suspects that the monks wanted to bring the doges and patrons of the church, who were in mortal danger, to safety on behalf of Rome, from where they came - allegedly as pilgrims - as both Johann and Dandolo report. At the same time they wanted to prevent the incorporation of Veneto into the empire, which had stood in the way of their idea of ​​ecclesiastical dominance. Vitale Candiano, on the other hand, was a brother of the murdered Pietro IV. Gfrörer also describes the patriarch's negotiation success at Otto's court, albeit briefly. Similar to the Merovingians, so Gfrörer, so it happened to the Candiani: “Because the possession of unlimited power easily leads to an excess of enjoyment, and this in turn leads to debilitation of the sexes.” For him the “infirmity”, “connected with his conciliatory disposition, “a major reason he was elected in the first place. For the Orseoli, who had to bite the bullet, Vitale Candiano was the lesser evil, according to Gfrörer.

Pietro Pinton, who translated and annotated Gfrörer's work in the Archivio Veneto in the annual volumes XII to XVI, usually corrected many of his assumptions, especially when it came to those for which there was no evidence from the sources. His own critical examination of Gfrörer's work did not appear until 1883, also in the Archivio Veneto. In contrast to Gfrörer, Pinton recognizes the conciliatory character of the Doge in the compromise with Waldrada - and this, as Pinton adds, to a woman who certainly had a share in the tyranny of the murdered Doge (p. 337 f.). Secrecy and the haste to flee also point to the greatest danger for Pinton, and even if the people may have mourned, they did not search long for the person who had fled, but chose a Candiano that same month. For once, Pinton does not contradict Gfrörer's interpretations here, but on the contrary praises the fact that he puts the interests of the protagonists in a beautiful light.

In 1861 Francesco Zanotto, who gave the people's assembly considerably more influence in his Il Palazzo ducale di Venezia , reported that some claimed, even if "Pietro I Orseolo" was loved very much, that the Candiani had tried to kill him. These brought the humble, friendly and calm Vitale to the dog's seat. "Sua prima cura fu", "It was his first concern" to call his nephew Vitale back to the Gradensian patriarchal chair. He stayed at the imperial court in Verona, where he had incited the emperor's hatred of the Venetians until then. But now he was to travel to Germany to reconcile him with the republic. The emperor received rich gifts and recognized the earlier treaties. But after 14 months the doge resigned because of his faith, but even more because of his “gravissima infermità”, went to the monastery and died there four days later.

Also Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna calls in the first, in 1867 published volume of his Storia dei Dogi di Venezia first "Vitale Candiano, doge XXIV". He was elected the new Doge as the son of the third and brother of the fourth Candiano , who was murdered in 976. With him, the Candiano came back to power. But the new doge, who was already quite old but humble and pleasant to deal with, turned everything for the better for the commune. He brought his nephew of the same name from Verona and sent him to Emperor Otto II, who hated the Venetians since the murder of the fourth Candiano. This stayed in "Queidlimburg" in Saxony. He received the Patriarch and the ambassadors kindly, "non che i ricchi doni da 'Veneziani con tal mezzo presentatigli". He confirmed the old privileges and contracts. Because he valued the patriarch and was on friendly terms with him, and because he still had a lot to do in “Lamagna”, he let himself be reassured. The close relationship with the Candiano had existed since 963, so Cicogna. The Ottonians pushed for greater independence of Venice from the Eastern Empire. Already close to death, the doge withdrew from office after only 14 months and became a monk in the “cenobio de'Santi Benedetto ed Ilario”. According to Cicogna, contemporaries believed that death in a monk's habit cleansed the sins committed.

Heinrich Kretschmayr assumes that with the choice of Vitales, by “going back to the house of Candiano”, one believed “to be able to appease the dangerous unwillingness of the emperor”. It is possible that Bishop Giselbert von Merseburg , who was in Italy at the time, interfered because Patriarch Vitalis von Grado , who had been plotting against the Venetian Doge, whom he held responsible for the doge's murder in 976, took one another attitude. After the election of the new Doge, he hurried to Venice to go again as envoy to negotiations in the Roman-German Empire . The Doge recognized the reclamation of confiscated property of the Candiano in the Fogolana area near Chioggia . However, in November 979 the old doge died in the monastery of S. Ilario, where he had retired as a monk four days before, even before the negotiations about it were concluded. "His successor was that Tribunus Menius [...] who, perhaps related by marriage to the Candians, after Pietros IV's death had taken possession of the same allodies."

In his History of Venice, John Julius Norwich sees the government of Orseolo's successor, “the weak and probably invalid Vitale Candiano”, as just an “interregnum”. Vitale resigned after only fourteen months and went to a monastery, "leaving the throne to yet another member of his family."

swell

• 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).
• La cronaca veneziana del diacono Giovanni , in: Giovanni Monticolo (ed.): Cronache veneziane antichissime (= Fonti per la storia d'Italia [Medio Evo], IX), Rome 1890, p. 143 (“Post cuius dicessum Vitalis, cognomento Candianus, vir totius prudentiae et bonitatis, in ducatus honorem subrogatus est; quod audiens Vitalis patriarcha, qui apud Veronensem marchia morabatur, in Venetiam intravit.qui a duce interpellatus cum suis nuntiis ad pacem inter imperatorem et Veneticos consolidandam, Teutonicum region Petri interfectione ammodum illos execrabiles exososque habebant; firmato autem federe ad propria reversus est. Praedictus namque dux, corporali molestia ingruente, quattuor diebus antequam vitam presenteminaret, monachum mens fieri et ad sancti Illari monasterium praedicum duco duco monasterium praedorefuit , tumulatusque est in eodem monasterio. "). ( Digitized version )
• Ester Pastorello (Ed.): Andrea Dandolo, Chronica per extensum descripta aa. 460-1280 dC , (= Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XII, 1), Nicola Zanichelli, Bologna 1938, p. 184 f. ( Digitized, p. 184 f. )

literature

• Pompeo Litta: Famiglie celebri di Italia. Candiano di Venezia , Gallica (Litta lived from 1781 to 1851).

Remarks

1. ^ Roberto Pesce (Ed.): Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo. Origini - 1362 , Centro di Studi Medievali e Rinascimentali "Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna", Venice 2010, p. 45 f.
2. ↑ Pietro Marcello : Vite de'prencipi di Vinegia in the translation of Lodovico Domenichi, Marcolini, 1558, pp 38-40, to his Dogat S. 41 ( digitized ).
3. ↑ 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. 72-76, but only a few lines on the Dogat ( online ).
4. ↑ Heinrich Kellner : Chronica that is Warhaffte actual and short description, all life in Venice , Frankfurt 1574, p. 16v ( digitized, p. 16v ).
5. ↑ Alessandro Maria Vianoli : Der Venetianischen Hertsehen Leben / Government, und Dieben / Von dem First Paulutio Anafesto an / bit on the now-ruling Marcum Antonium Justiniani , Nuremberg 1686, pp. 141–148, to his Dogat pp. 149–152, Translation ( digitized ).
6. ↑ Jacob von Sandrart : Kurtze and increased description of the origin / recording / areas / and government of the world famous Republick Venice , Nuremberg 1687, p. 26 ( digitized, p. 26 ).
7. ↑ 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 the next , 4 vols., Johann Friedrich Hartknoch , Riga and Leipzig 1769–1777, vol. 1, Leipzig and Riga 1769, p. 225 f. ( Digitized version ).
8. ^ 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. 251–257 ( digitized version ).
9. ↑ 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, pp. 312–330, on Dogat pp. 330–333 ( digitized version ).
10. ^ Pietro Pinton: La storia di Venezia di AF Gfrörer , in: Archivio Veneto 25.2 (1883) 288-313 ( digitized version ) and 26 (1883) 330-365, here: p. 339 ( digitized version ).
11. ↑ Francesco Zanotto: Il Palazzo ducale di Venezia , Vol. 4, Venice 1861, p. 57 ( digitized version ).
12. ^ Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna : Storia dei Dogi di Venezia , Vol. 1, Venice 1867, o. P.
13. ^ Heinrich Kretschmayr : History of Venice , 3 vol., Vol. 1, Gotha 1905, p. 118 f.
14. ^ John Julius Norwich : A History of Venice , Penguin, London 2003.

predecessor	Office	successor
Pietro I. Orseolo	Doge of Venice 978–979	Tribuno Memmo