Vitale Candiano (Patriarch)
Vitale Candiano , also Vitalis (* around 940, † around 1018), was Patriarch of Grado from 967 until his death .
Life
Vitale was born around 940. His mother was Johanna, the first wife of his father, Doge Pietro IV Candiano , who was sent to the monastery of San Zaccaria ; for the son he envisaged an ecclesiastical office. Johanna appears in a document dated August 26, 963 as the abbess of the abbey in question. If one follows the chronicle of Andrea Dandolo , Vitale could have become Bishop of Grado in the same year . His father remarried, perhaps around 964, namely Waldrada, which brought considerable land and wealth into the marriage.
As Bishop of Grado, Vitale was busy with the disputes that revolved around the rights of the metropolitans of Grado and Aquileia . A synod in Mantua recognized Aquileia's rights in 827, but Grado tried to regain them as part of the expansion of Venetian rule into the hinterland and into Istria . At a synod at which Emperor Otto I was present, Pope John XIII recognized. the rights of the Gradensian church as patriarchal seat "totius Venecie" to "From a privilege of January 2nd, 968, which the Emperors Otto I and Otto II issued together, and which the ambassadors Giovanni Contarini and the deacon Giovanni Dento received The privilege was confirmed again by Otto II on April 2, 974. The authenticity of the confirmations by the subsequent Popes Silvester II (999–1003) and Sergius IV (1009–1012) is doubted, however their exhibition would fit into the politics of the emperors and thus of the Vatican. In 971 the patriarch signed the promissio , which provided for a ban on the timber and arms trade with the Saracens, as enforced by the Byzantine emperor Johannes Tzimiskes .
In 976, a rebellion, presumably led by Pietro Orseolo , in which the Doge's Palace , three churches and 300 houses burned down, led to the murder of the Doge, his son and his soldiers. Vitale fled to Saxony at the imperial court. Only with the election of Vitale Candiano as a result of Pietro Orseolo's flight, he was able to return. Maybe the new doge was his uncle. A richly equipped embassy tried to improve relations with the imperial court. Another embassy was more successful in this regard, already under the Doge Tribuno Memo , a cognatic relative, in 983. In 989 Grado received the church of San Silvestro in Venice as a gift . It became the seat of the Gradensian patriarchs in the city after it had passed to the Venetian treasury due to the extinction of the Caloprini family. Relations with Doge Pietro II. Orseolo , in office from 991 onwards, were even more favorable . In 992, Vitale consecrated Bishop of Torcello in the presence of this Doge Domenico Gradonico . In 998 he solemnly blessed the navy heading for Dalmatia , where the patriarch's possessions were also located. The fleet made a stop in Grado, where, in addition to the blessing, they received a standard of Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus .
Pope Silvester II complained to both the Patriarch ( Saecularia iudicia ) and the Doge ( Inter diversas ) to put an end to the corruption in the clergy. In the absence of sources, it is not known how the patriarch and the Doge reacted to this.
Vitale died after five decades of patriarchal rule, around 1018 if you accept 967 as the election year. He was able to induce the Doge to build walls and towers in Grado as well , then a Doge's palace, but also to furnish the church of Sant'Eufemia .
literature
- Riccardo Capasso: Candiano, Vitale , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 17 (1974) 771-773. (Basis of the presentation part)
Remarks
- ^ Paul Fridolin Kehr : Italia pontificia ..., VII, 2, Berlin 1925, n.64, p. 50.
- ^ Karl Friedrich Stumpf : The imperial documents of the X., XI. and XII. Century, Innsbruck 1865-1883, n.415.
- ^ Johann Friedrich Böhmer : Regesta Imperii ... , I, Frankfurt 1831, n. 462.
- ^ Paul Fridolin Kehr: Italia pontificia ..., VII, 2, Berlin 1925, n. 67, p. 50.
- ^ Paul Fridolin Kehr: Italia pontificia ..., VII, 2, Berlin 1925, n. 26, p. 18.