Ottaviano Querini (fl. 1181–1211) was a Venetian nobleman, ambassador, and administrator.
Ottaviano Querini is first attested in 1181, serving as either ducal councillor or judge in Venice. [1] He then served as envoy to the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos in 1189, and went again to Constantinople in 1198, securing an imperial chrysobull that granted privileges to Venetian merchants in the Byzantine Empire. [1] By 1200, he was back in Venice, where he served as ducal councillor under Doge Enrico Dandolo. [1]
It is possible that after the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Querini was one of the six Venetian electors in the election of Baldwin of Flanders as Latin Emperor of Constantinople. [1] In August 1205, he was in Venice, serving as one of the electors in the election of Pietro Ziani as doge. [1]
In April 1207, he was appointed as the Venetian Podestà of Constantinople, arriving in the city a month later. He remained in office at least until Mach 1209. [1] After the end of his tenure there, he returned to Venice, where he is last attested in September 1211, serving as a judge and witness to the charter granted to the Venetian military colonists on Crete. [2]
The Doge of Venice was the highest role of authority within the Republic of Venice. The word Doge derives from the Latin Dux, meaning "leader," originally referring to any military leader, becoming in the Late Roman Empire the title for a leader of an expeditionary force formed by detachments from the frontier army, separate from, but subject to, the governor of a province, authorized to conduct operations beyond provincial boundaries.
Enrico Dandolo was the doge of Venice from 1192 until his death. He is remembered for his avowed piety, longevity, and shrewdness, and his role in the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. Dandolo died in 1205 in Constantinople and was buried at the Hagia Sophia.
Jacopo Tiepolo, also known as Giacomo Tiepolo, was Doge of Venice from 1229 to 1249. He had previously served as the first Venetian Duke of Crete, and two terms as Podestà of Constantinople, twice as governor of Treviso, and three times as ambassador to the Holy See. His dogate was marked by major domestic reforms, including the codification of civil law and the establishment of the Venetian Senate, but also against a mounting conflict with Emperor Frederick II, which broke into open war from 1237 to 1245.
The Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae, or Partitio regni Graeci, was a treaty signed among the crusaders after the sack of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. It established the Latin Empire and arranged the nominal partition of the Byzantine territory among the participants of the Crusade, with the Republic of Venice being the greatest titular beneficiary. However, because the crusaders did not in fact control most of the Empire, local Byzantine Greek nobles established a number of Byzantine successor kingdoms. As a result, much of the crusaders' declared division of the Empire amongst themselves could never be implemented. The Latin Empire established by the treaty would last until 1261, when the Empire of Nicaea reconquered Constantinople, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire. The various crusader principalities in southern Greece and the Aegean archipelago would last much longer, until they were conquered by the Ottomans in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Podestà of Constantinople was the official in charge of Venetian possessions in the Latin Empire and the Venetian quarter of Constantinople during the 13th century. Nominally a vassal to the Latin Emperor, the Podestà functioned as a ruler in his own right, and answered to the Doge of Venice. The Podestà was also officially known as Governor of One-Fourth and One-Half of the Empire of Romania and was entitled to wearing the crimson buskins as the emperors.
Marco Gradenigo was a 13th-century Venetian nobleman, senior provincial administrator in the Venetian overseas empire and a military commander. He was involved in three major conflicts: the War of the Euboeote Succession, where Gradenigo organized a league of the lords of Latin Greece against the Principality of Achaea; the defence of the Latin Empire against the Empire of Nicaea, which failed with the Reconquest of Constantinople by the Nicaeans during Gradenigo's tenure as Podestà of Constantinople; and the naval operations of the War of Saint Sabas against the Republic of Genoa.
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