Word Finder - doge

definition

The chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa.

Further, two ducal councillors were appointed to assist the doge, and he was compelled, not merely permitted, to seek the advice of the more prominent citizens at moments of crisis.

The first step towards curtailing the power of the doge was taken in 1032, when the family of the Orseoli was finally expelled from Venice and the doge Domenico Flabianico was called to the throne.

The several steps whereby the members of the grand council succeeded in eliminating the people from a share in the government, and reducing the doge to the position of their ornamental representative, cannot here be described.

Equally extensive, but less important in the political sphere, were the Papal States and Veneti, the former torpid under the obscurantist rule of pope and cardinals, the latter enervated by luxury and the policy of unmanly complaisance long pursued by doge and council.

The French emperor, at the supposed request of the doge of Genoa, declared the Ligurian Republic to be an integral part of the French empire.

The present cathedral contains several early Christian marble sarcophagi, a silver cross of the 6th century (that of Agnellus), and the so-called throne of the Archbishop Maximian (54655 2), adorned with reliefs in ivory, which, however, was really brought to Ravenna in iooi by John the Deacon, who recorded the fact in his Venetian chronicle, as a present from the Doge Pietro Orseolo to the Emperor Otho III.

The Genoese republic a little earlier underwent at his hand changes which made its doge all-powerful in local affairs, but a mere puppet in the hands of Bonaparte.

The church of St Mark's, originally the private chapel of the doge, is unique among the buildings of the world in respect of its unparalleled richness of material and decoration.

This church was burned in 976 along with the ducal palace in the insurrection against the Doge Candiano IV.

About the year 1063 the Doge Contarini resolved to remodel St Mark's.

The Doge Domenico Selvo began the decoration of the church in 1071, though it is uncertain whether any of his work can be now identified.

It 'was ordered in 976 at Constantinople by the Doge Pietro I.

The palace as we now see it was begun about 1300 by Doge Pietro Gradenigo, who soon after the closing of the great council gave its permanent form to the Venetian constitution.

The block of buildings in the interior, connecting the Porta della Carta to the Rio wing, was added about 1462 by the doge Cristoforo Moro.

The grey column is surmounted by a fine bronze lion of Byzantine style, cast in Venice for Doge Ziani about 1178 (this was carried off to Paris by Napoleon in 1797, and sent back in pieces in 1816; but in 1893 it was put together again); and in 1329 a marble statue of St Theodore, standing upon a crocodile, was placed on the other column.

To this they agreed, and in 697 Venice elected her first doge, Paulo Lucio Anafesto.

The aristocratic party was captained by the township of Heraclea, which had given the first doge, Anafesto, to the newly formed community.

He did so, and expelled the exarch Paul, who took refuge in Venice and was restored to his post by the doge of the Heraclean or Byzantine party, Orso, who in return for this assistance received the imperial title of hypatos, and trading rights in Ravenna.

He and his followers plotted the murder of the doge, were discovered, and sought safety at the court of Charlemagne, where Fortunatus strongly urged the Franks to attack the lagoons.

The period from the election of the first doge to the appearance of the Franks was characterized by fierce struggles between Heraclea and Jesolo.

The history of Venice during the next two hundred years is marked externally by the growth of the city, thanks to an ever-expanding trade, both down the Adriatic, which brought the republic into collision with the Dalmatian pirates and led to their final conquest, in 1000, by the doge Pietro Orseolo II., and also on the mainland, where Venice gradually acquired trading rights, partly by imperial diploma, partly by the establishment and the supply of markets on the mainland rivers, the Sile and the Brenta.

The doge assumed the title of duke of Dalmatia, and a great step was taken towards the supremacy of Venice in the Adriatic, which was essential to the free development of her commerce and also enabled her to reap the pecuniary advantages to be derived from the Crusades.

The doge Dandolo now saw an opportunity to benefit Venice.

They were met by the Doge Pietro Gradenigo and crushed.

At the apex of the pyramid came the doge and his council, the point of highest honour and least weight in the constitution.

The fourth Turkish war (1570-1573) was signalized by the glorious victory of Lepanto (1571), due chiefly to the prowess of the Venetians under their doge Sebastian Venier.

The government resolved to offer no resistance to the conqueror, and the doge Lodovico Manin abdicated on the 12th of May 1797.

An agreement was made between the doge and the envoys, by which transport and active help were to be given by Venice in return for 85,000 marks and the cession of half of the conquests made by the crusaders.

Venice had her own reward; a Venetian, Thomas Morosini, became patriarch; and the doge of Venice added "a quarter and a half" of the Eastern empire - chiefly the coasts and the islands - to the sphere of his sway.

It is not worth while to refer to all the wild guesses that were made by various writers, but Dr Creighton shows the absurdity of one of these calculations made in 1554 by Soranzo, the Venetian ambassador for the information of the doge and senators of Venice.

In 1688 he was elected doge, and in 1693 he took command of the Venetian forces against the Turks for the fourth time; the enemy which had been cruising in the archipelago withdrew at his approach, so great was the terror inspired by his name.

The sober lists of names with which it opens; the account of the embassy, so business-like in its estimates of costs and terms, and suddenly breaking into a fervent description of how the six deputies, "prostrating themselves on the earth and weeping warm tears, begged the doge and people of Venice to have pity on Jerusalem"; the story immediately following, how the young count Thibault of Champagne, raising himself from a sickbed in his joy at the successful return of his ambassadors, "leva sus et chevaucha, et laz!

Louis fought a battle beneath the walls of Zara (July ist, 1346), which has been immortalized by Tintoretto, but was defeated and compelled to abandon the city to the republic. The struggle was renewed eleven years later when Louis, having formed, with infinite trouble, a league of all the enemies of Venice, including the emperor, the Habsburgs, Genoa and other Italian towns, attacked his maritime rival with such vigour that she sued for peace, and by the treaty of Zara (February 18th, 1358) ceded most of the Dalmatian towns and renounced the title of duke of Dalmatia and Croatia, hitherto borne by the doge.

While he was Venetian ambassador at Cremona he was elected doge (1414), and he escaped in secret, fearing that he might be held a prisoner by Gabrino Fondolo, tyrant of that city.

Another LUIGI MOCENIGO was doge from 1700 to 1709, and his brother SEBASTIANO from 1722 to 1732.

The form it took was a solemn procession of boats, headed by the doge's maesta nave, afterwards the Bucentaur (from 1311) out to sea by the Lido port.

A prayer was offered that "for us and all who sail thereon the sea may be calm and quiet," whereupon the doge and the others were solemnly aspersed with holy water, the rest of which was thrown into the sea while the priests chanted "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean."

The pope drew a ring from his finger and, giving it to the doge, bade him cast such a one into the sea each year on Ascension day, and so wed the sea.

Caterina was solemnly adopted by the doge as a "daughter of the Republic" and sailed for Cyprus in 1472 with the title of queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia.

On the 17th of July the crusaders, the aged doge Dandolo at their head, scaled the walls and took the city by storm.

In 1612 he was employed by the duke as his envoy to Venice, where he distinguished himself by the congratulatory oration he delivered before the Venetian senate on the election of the new doge, Andrea Memmo.

The grand flight of external steps entering the mansions of the medieval nobility or high officials was considered in itself a mark of jurisdiction, as it is said that sentence was there pronounced against criminals, who were afterwards executed at the foot of the steps--as at the Giant's Stairs of the Doge's palace at Venice.

The Venetians were given Crete and several other islands and ports in the Levant, which formed an uninterrupted chain from Venice to the Black Sea, a large part of Constantinople (whence the doge assumed the title of "lord of a quarter and a half of Romania"), and many valuable privileges.

Enrico Dandolo's sons distinguished themselves in the public service, and his grandson Giovanni was doge from 1280 to 1289.

Francesco Dandolo, also known as Dandolo Cane, was doge from 1329 to 1339.

Andrea Dandolo (1307/101 354), the last doge of the family, reigned from 1343 to 1354.

The poet Petrarch, who was the doge's intimate friend, was sent to Venice on a peace mission by Giovanni Visconti, lord of Milan.

The facade dates from 1278, and the interior of the edifice dates in the main from 1543 In the crypt is the tomb of Andrea Doria by Montorsoli, and above the main altar hangs the dagger presented to the doge by Pope Paul III.

The belfry, which rises above the right-hand doorway, was erected about 1520 by the doge, Ottaviano da Campofragoso, and the cupola was erected after the designs of the architect Galeazzo Alessi in 1567.

San Siro, originally the "Church of the Apostles" and the cathedral of Genoa, was rebuilt by the Benedictines in the 11th century, and restored and enlarged by the Theatines in 1576, the facade being added in 1830; in this church in 1339 Simone Boccanera was elected first doge of Genoa.