Episode 32 — The first doges of Venice

If you thought fake news is a recent invention, think again. The traditional story of the first Venetian doges is little more than that, a made up story. Several of them probably didn’t even exist, and if they did, weren’t what we’re told they were. Fake news from a thousand years ago, but well seasoned. You’ve been warned.

Links

Past episodes in the “Early Venice” series.

• Episode 3 — The Roman and Byzantine period
• Episode 27 — Cassiodorus
• Episode 28 — The early sources
• Episode 29 — The Lombard Invasion
• Episode 30 — Venetia Maritima
• Episode 31 — The world of Venetia

Transcript

Episode 32 — The first doges of Venice

Venice started as a duchy — what the Venetians later called the dogado.

There was nothing odd in that.

The Byzantine organisation of Italy was as a series of territories, each governed by a military leader called a dux, and therefore called ducati (in the singular, ducatus).

The words ‘duke’ and ‘duchy’ come from there, so do the Venetian doge and dogado.

Rome and Naples were such Byzantine duchies, as was the Pentapolis south of Ravenna, and, indeed, Venetia.

There might very well have been several more.

We often have very scarce information about the exarchate and the Byzantine duchies, as the system was created on an ad hoc basis. It was a military emergency response to the Lombard invasion. We can’t even draw up a reliable list of the Exarchs of Ravenna, and much less of their subordinate territorial commanders around the ever-changing Byzantine dominions in Italy.

Before the invasion, the Lombards had lived in close contact with Byzantium for half a century. That is at least two generations, so many Lombards only knew the Byzantine world — or rather, the periphery of it.

They had lived on Byzantine lands, and they had sent troops as auxiliaries for Byzantine wars, including the Gothic Wars in Italy in the 550s.

When the Lombards entered and established themselves in Italy, they created a somewhat similar organisation, and often used elements of the Byzantine terminology.

We therefore see — practically immediately — the creation of Lombard duchies, governed by Lombard dukes.

As they took over one Roman city after another, Alboin — the Lombard leader of the invasion, and later king — put his trusted brothers-in-arms in charge of them, as dukes.

Within the first few years, they created duchies of Forum Iulii (Friuli), Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Ceneda (modern Vittorio Veneto), and as the conquest progressed, many more were added. Several of these duchies would exist for centuries, and some well into the modern period.

If the Byzantine Venetians, once they had migrated to the many settlements in the lagoons, used the model of a ducatus for their polity, there’s nothing strange about that.

It was the predominant form of territorial organisation, on both sides of the political divide, which dominated the times they lived in.

But, … maybe that wording wasn’t good because the Venetians didn’t create a duchy of their own, modelling it on what happened around them.

The duchy was already there.

The Dogado

The Exarchate of Ravenna already had a Ducatus Venetiarum — a duchy of the Venetians — with an appointed dux.

That appointed dux — who initially resided in Oderzo (ancient Opitergium) — moved to Civitas Nova Heracliana around 640, as part of the migration towards the lagoons.

The first political and administrative organisation of the lagoon communities was therefore not something new, but a direct continuation — on a reduced scale — of what already existed.

The Venetians didn’t create a new society with new institutions. They just continued with the ones they had had for ages.

As such, the Republic of Venice — the Serenissima — had direct roots back to Roman times, without any substantial discontinuities.

The later Venetians were very keen on being direct descendants of Ancient Rome — in a perceived unbroken line— unlike the Frankish kingdom, which became France, or the Lombard duchies, or the Papal State, or the Holy Roman Empire, which had all been created later.

Even if these polities — for reasons of legitimacy — claimed a direct line back to Antiquity, there were some very evident discontinuities in their narratives.

That was far less so for Venice.

The Dogado

So Venice was — at the start of its history — a Byzantine duchy governed by a duke.

Initially, the dukes were Byzantine officials appointed by the Exarch of Ravenna, but at some point, the power of appointment shifted to the local communities, ultimately leading to statehood and independence for Venice.

How, why and when did that happen?

Initially, we can limit the period to between the 640s and 751.

In the 640s, the dux, along with the bishop, moved from Oderzo to the New City (Civitas Nova or Cittanova) of Heraclia, and we have no sources whatsoever indicating that this was anything but the head the Byzantine military and administration, and of the local Orthodox church, moving to a nearby, but safer city.

At the other end, in 751, the Lombard king Aistulf attacked and took Ravenna. The last exarch was killed, and no successor was ever appointed. This marked the end of the Exarchate of Ravenna, and of any Byzantine presence in north-eastern Italy, except for the now detached Duchy of the Venetians.

The birth of Venice as a political entity, with some degree of independence, must be found in this period.

John the Deacon on the first doges

We have no substantial contemporary sources, as the settlements in the lagoons between Grado and Cavarzere weren’t of much importance at the time.

For example, Paul the Deacon — writing in the late 700s — simply dismissed Venice as:

the few islands which we now call Venice

The earliest Venetian source is from three centuries after the events.

John the Deacon wrote his Istoria Veneticorum around the year 1000, and he is our first source for how the Venetian came about choosing their own rulers.

Here are some excerpts of the account of John the Deacon about the beginnings of Venice as an independent polity.

First, the migration from the first Venetia on the mainland to the new Venetia in the lagoons (book II, chapter 1):

So while they stayed in that same province [Venetia Maritima] with a large number of people, they preferred to be subject only to the tribunes.

As a result, over a span of one hundred and fifty years, every year they elevated to the high offices those who tried to examine their causes.

And since they were deeply grieved that their homelands were being taken by barbarians, there were constant disputes between the two sides so that they would compete with each other by causing harm and plundering.

So, according to John the Deacon, the early migrants into the lagoons — that same province — decided that they didn’t want to have a central government with a single ruler, but only the tribunes.

In the Byzantine system — which John the Deacon otherwise ignored completely in this passage — tribunes were local military commanders, but with civilian duties too. They ranked below the dux and the magister militum — the master of the soldiers.

The famous letter of Cassiodorus to the “Maritime tribunes” in the coastal areas of Venetia — from around 537 — referred to these tribunes as local figures of authority, and as the individuals who could fulfil his requests.

The civilian duties of a tribune were primarily to keep order and sit as judges in local disputes. They were mediators and arbiters in the local community. This is what John the Deacon referred to when he wrote to examine their causes.

The Chronicon Altinate went into great detail about the tribunes, and the families which supplied them in the various towns, but it was written one or two centuries after John the Deacon, based on sources, which are unknown to us. However, from the Altinate it appears that a tribune was chosen locally in each of the many settlements in the lagoons, and that they generally served one-year terms.

The span of one hundred and fifty years match almost perfectly the period from the Lombard invasion in 568 to the appointment of the first doge in the reckoning of John the Deacon, around 715.

Finally, he mentioned a very conflictual relationship to the Lombards, with disputes and skirmished along a not very well-defined border.

This passage set the scene for the first doge — still in the reckoning of John the Deacon — which is not the same as the traditional list of doges of Venice.

This is how John the Deacon described the selection of the first doge:

During the times of Emperor Anastasius and King Liutprand of the Lombards, all the Venetians, together with the patriarch and bishops, met and decided that it would be more honourable from then on to remain under dukes rather than tribunes.

After long discussions about who should be given this dignity, they finally found a very able and renowned man, named Paulicius, to whom they swore loyalty and appointed him as duke in the city of Eracliana. He was very disciplined and he controlled his men with equity.

With King Liutprand, he also secured a lasting peace, establishing agreements that still exist between the Venetians and Lombards.

He also set the boundaries of the New City, which until now were controlled by the Venetians, together with the same king, from Piave Major to Piavisella according to the designated locations.

The reigns of emperor Anastasius and king Liutprand are such, that the meeting must have taken place in the period from 713 to 715.

Again, John the Deacon entirely ignored any kind of Byzantine presence or influence, and made the selection a question of Venetian honour, and an act of a united Venetian society, in unison with the Venetian church.

The New City was Civitas Nova Heracliana — Heraclia — which was the seat of the first doges, and before them of the Byzantine duces.

The new duke, being a highly esteemed and illustrious individual, immediately established an honourable peace with the Lombards.

A bit later, in the Istoria Veneticorum, we have:

In the year of the Lord 727, with the death of Duke Paulicius at the New City, who had led for 20 years and 6 months, Marcellus succeeded him as duke.

Already here, we see the chronology falling apart. If Paulicius was appointed between 713 and 715, he can’t have ruled for twenty years, if he died in 727.

Marcellus, the new duke of the Venetians, ruled for 18 years:

At the same time, the mentioned duke Marcellus died, who had governed the duchy at the New City of Venice for eighteen years and twenty days, succeeded by duke Ursus, who had also ruled the aforementioned duchy in the same city for eleven years and five months.

At this point, John the Deacon has listed three doges, with combined reigns of over fifty years, but as we have already seen, his chronology simply doesn’t add up.

So, besides John the Deacon, what else do we know about these three figures?

Well, practically nothing, except maybe for the last, Ursus or Orso, with the Byzantine title of Hypatos.

Paulicius

Paulicius, an honourable man of Heraclia, appointed at some point around 713–715, reigned for twenty years, but still managed to die in 727.

Besides John the Deacon, we have no other sources for Paulicius. None, as in zero.

Where did John the Deacon find him?

The only possible place is the Pactum Lothari, which he certainly knew and had read.

The Pactum Lothari was a treaty, drawn up in 840, between emperor Lothair I of the Holy Roman Empire, and Venice, ruled then by doge Pietro Tradonico.

The treaty also renewed a series of provisions from earlier agreements, which haven’t come down to us, but parts of them are integrated in the text of 840.

The relevant part is chapter 26:

And about the boundaries of Cittanova we decree that they must remain as they are, like in the settlement made at the time of king Liutprand between the duke Paulicius and the magister militum Marcellus, according to the concession made to you inhabitants of Cittanova by Aistulf.

Here we have both a duke Paulicius and a magister militum Marcellus, but it is not what John the Deacon made it up to be.

There’s a reference to an agreement at the time of Liutprand. This document — called the terminatio Liutprandina — is usually dated to around 712–713, and its purpose was to settle the border between the territories of the city of Heraclia in the lagoon, and the Lombard duchy of Treviso on the mainland, and regulate the activities allowed by either side in the border areas.

The concession by the Lombard king Aistulf was from 751, immediately after his conquest of Ravenna and the consequent end of the Exarchate. It is called the largitio Astolfina, and it re-confirmed the previous agreement from 712 or 713. Aistulf obviously wasn’t too bothered by the lagoon settlements, and didn’t want trouble on that front, so he told them nothing would change, despite the fall of Ravenna and the end of the Exarchate.

A key element of chapter 26 of the Pactum Lothari is that the agreement was between duke Paulicius and magister militum Marcellus.

There are usually two opposing parties to an agreement, and in the terminatio Liutprandina Paulicius and Marcellus are on opposite sides.

The Lombards never used the title magister militum, which leaves little doubt that Marcellus was on the Byzantine side of the table.

This rules out the earlier hypothesis that Paulicius was, in fact, the Byzantine exarch Paulus, and the name a contraction of Paulus Patricius — Paulus the Patrician. Patrician was a Byzantine court title, and often used by Lombard sources for the exarchs.

It is therefore much more likely that Paulicius was a Lombard duke, probably of the Duchy of Treviso, and that the terminatio Liutprandina was a local agreement, made by the local officials on either side.

The Byzantine Ducatus Venetiarum was represented by the local military commander, and the Kingdom of the Lombards by one of the local dukes.

Without a Venetian duke in the terminatio Liutprandina, the entire narrative of John the Deacon falls apart.

The short story is that there never was a Venetian duke — or doge — named Paulicius.

He didn’t exist.

John the Deacon made him up.

Given the politics of John the Deacon, he probably wanted to pull the line of Venetian doges far enough back to make the terminatio Liutprandina a deal struck by the independent and freedom loving Venetians, rather than an agreement made over their head by a Byzantine official in Heraclia.

John the Deacon consistently tried to write Byzantium out of the Venetian story, but he couldn’t deny or ignore the terminatio Liutprandina, which was in the archives of the ducal chancery in Venice, through the Pactum Lothari.

The Pactum Lothari couldn’t be ignored because at the time of John the Deacon, it still established the borders of the dogado. It might very well have been one of the most consequential documents in the ducal archive at the time.

We have to discard the Venetian doge Paulicius as a fake.

Marcellus

The second doge, Marcellus, took over in 727, still in John the Deacon’s reckoning.

He might, or he might not, be the magister militum mentioned in the Pactum Lothari, corresponding to a time some fifteen years earlier than his accession to the dogado.

Unlike with Paulicius, we do have one other source, which mentions a duke Marcellus from this period.

In 723, there was a conflict between Serenus, the Patriarch of Aquileia, and Donatus, Patriarch of Grado, over which dioceses belonged to which of the two jurisdictions.

Pope Gregory II had withheld the pallium of Serenus, which amounted to a denial of Papal recognition of his appointment as patriarch. However, king Liutprand of the Lombards intervened, Pope Gregory conceded and sent the pallium to Serenus, but accompanied by a stern letter.

At the same time, another letter went to Donatus, the wronged Patriarch of Grado. The address of this letter was, as it was quoted in later chronicles:

Gregory the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the most beloved brothers Donatus the patriarch, and the bishops, and to duke Marcellus and the people of Venetia and Istria.

These letters are dated December 1st, 723, several years before John the Deacon made Marcellus doge.

Most scholars today consider Marcellus a Byzantine appointee, and not a doge elected by the Venetians.

John the Deacon, building his narrative of the first two doges on the Pactum Lothari, clearly identified him with the magister militum mentioned there.

If we accept that identification, then he was almost certainly a Byzantine official and military commander, presiding over the Byzantine Venetia Maritima, with seat of government in Heraclia.

Aside from the Istoria Veneticorum, we have no sources whatsoever which indicate that the lagoon communities had any kind of autonomy in the early 700s. At that time, the Exarchate was still sufficiently functioning and influential to govern the lagoon communities of Venetia.

That the letter from 723 gave him the title dux doesn’t preclude him being an appointed commander, rather than a chosen leader. The title dux was a Byzantine title, and there must have been numerous Byzantine duces of Venetia, whose names have been lost to time. We don’t even know all the Exarchs, and hardly any from the Pentapolis, south of Ravenna.

That Marcellus was a magister militum in one situation, and a dux in another, doesn’t necessarily mean at lot. In the later period of the Exarchate, the two titles were used almost interchangeably, and seems to have meant practically the same thing.

There is also the possibility that the papal letter of 723 is a Venetian fake, or a partial fake, made to prop up an origin narrative that was politically expedient, but in dire need of some documentary evidence.

Like many other ancient documents, the letter has come down to us in several versions, but not in the original. It has been quoted in its entirety in several other surviving documents, such as the later — very influential — chronicle of Andrea Dandolo from the 1340s.

Before, I quoted the version of the letter from the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, volume three of the Epistulae, which has a text identical to the one by Andrea Dandolo.

In the associated list of source manuscripts, the Monumenta first names the Cronica de singulis patriarchis nove Aquileie — the Chronicle of the individual patriarchs of Grado, then called New Aquileia.

That chronicle is more or less contemporary with John the Deacon.

In this chronicle of the patriarchs of Grado, the opening is slightly different, even if the content of the letter is essentially the same. The opening is:

Gregory, servant of the servants of God, bishop to all the bishops of Venetia or Istria and to the peoples of the same.

So what happened there?

The older manuscript, from the time of John the Deacon, doesn’t have the dux Marcellus mentioned, while the later Venetian chronicles from the 1300s, do have him.

Was the reference to Marcellus added later — basically falsifying a source — or is the earlier quote incomplete?

We cannot know.

However, John the Deacon was quite content to quote papal letters at length, if they supported his narrative, and he doesn’t mention this letter with one word.

Writing in Rivoalto, John the Deacon might not have known the letter, while the author of the chronicle of the patriarchs, writing in Grado, knew it.

Again, we cannot know, but I find it unlikely, and I suspect we’ll have to consign Marcellus to the heap of discarded doges.

Iconoclasm

Before we look into the third duke of Venice, according to John the Deacon, we need a bit of context.

John the Deacon disliked the Byzantine Empire playing any part in his narrative of the history of Venice, but the empire was there, and it did play a major part, … well, until it didn’t.

In Constantinople, emperor Leo III the Isaurian adopted the belief that icons — religious images of saints, martyrs or angels — were offensive to God, and therefore had to be destroyed.

This Byzantine movement is called iconoclasm — the destruction of the icons.

To make a very long and complex story unreasonably short, the iconoclasts held the view that worship of religious images was idolatry, and therefore forbidden. The position was based on parts of the Old Testament, such as the story of the golden calf.

The opposing view, of the iconodoles or iconophiles, was that the icons represented a gateway to the divine, and if they were destroyed, man would lose access to the divine, and therefore to salvation.

Compromise between two such opposing views is not possible. Destroy half the icons, and rest assured that no-one will be satisfied. Consequently, the fight over the icons flared up regularly, in a first phase for much of the 700s.

Around 726, Leo III issued an edict ordering the destruction of all religious images, throughout the empire, and therefore in the Byzantine parts of Italy as well.

In Italy, the relationship between Paulus, the Exarch of Ravenna, and Pope Gregory II in Rome, was strained, and supposedly, the exarch had even tried to have the pope assassinated.

When the edict arrived in Rome, the opposition of Pope Gregory was absolute.

From the Liber Pontificalis — the Book of the Popes, a mostly contemporary source — we have:

The emperor had subsequently decreed that no image of any saint, martyr, or angel be kept: for he asserted that all were cursed.

And if the pontiff consented, he would have the emperor’s favour; if he prevented this from happening, he would resign his position.

Therefore, despising the profane command of the ruler, the man [Gregory II] armed himself against the emperor as if against an enemy, rejecting his heresy, warning Christians everywhere to beware, as it had arisen and been fulfilled.

Therefore, all the armies of the Pentapolis and of the Venetians moved, and resisted the command of the emperor, never agreeing to the death of the same pontiff, but rather engaging bravely for his greater defence, so that they subjected Paul the exarch, or whoever had directed him, and their accomplices to anathema; rejecting the order of the exarch, they chose all leaders for themselves throughout Italy; and thus they all sought the pontiff’s and their own immunity.

Aware of the emperor’s wickedness, all of Italy devised a plan to choose an emperor for themselves and to take Constantinople, but the pope suppressed such a plan, hoping for the ruler’s conversion.

So, confronted with the order to destroy the icons, Byzantine Italy rose against the emperor, taking armies to the field.

The Lombard king Liutprand used the opportunity to capture half a dozen cities and fortresses in the Byzantine area, while claiming to be protecting the pope from the devious exarch Paul.

The emperor sent reinforcements, but they were defeated near Ravenna, and Paul the exarch was killed, in 726 or, more likely, in 727.

Relative to Venice, there are two things of note in this account.

First, the Venetians were mentioned as such. While the Pentapolis was named as the duchy, the text doesn’t say Venetia the duchy, but the Venetians. Also, the Venetians could raise a fighting force of sufficient size to have an impact, and therefore be named in the text. The Venetians mattered in this context.

The impact in Venice

Second, we have the passage they chose all leaders for themselves throughout Italy.

This has been interpreted as a cue for a change of doge in Venice, but that would only make sense if the previous ruler or commander had been a Byzantine appointee.

That, of course, wasn’t the narrative John the Deacon wanted, so — in the passages quoted earlier — he simply ignored the events around the iconoclast edicts in 726 or 727. In his account, Paulicius died and Marcellus took over, for no particular reason and in good order.

The imperial edict, the riots, the call to arms of the Pope, Venetian troops sent to Ravenna, the fighting, and the death of the exarch, all this was simply left out of his account.

Why?

Because it didn’t match the narrative John the Deacon wanted, of a free and independent Venice, where the Byzantine Empire played no role.

It would only have worked, if the ruler or commander in Venice at the time was a Byzantine official, but John the Deacon had made the dukes Venetian.

And it is not because he didn’t know about those events.

The Istoria Veneticorum is full of references to the Historia Langobardorum by Paul the Deacon, and to the Liber Pontificalis, both of which talk about the iconoclast events.

He absolutely knew, and he decided to ignore it.

Orso Hypatos

The scholarly consensus today is that the first locally chosen doge of Venice was Ursus Hypatos — or, in Italian, Orso Ipato — and that his reign started in 726.

Hypatos wasn’t a surname. It was a Byzantine court title, with the meaning of consul, originally referring to the honorary consuls appointed in Imperial Rome each year. In the 700s, it was a not very high rank, often awarded to foreign dignitaries visiting Constantinople.

The year of his appointment, 726, was only established by Andrea Dandolo in his Chronaca extensa from the 1340s, which is, like, well over half a millennium after the facts.

Yet, for lack of better, we’ve stuck with it.

For the person of duke Ursus, or for his reign, we have very few sources, which are not based on John the Deacon, and they all relate to one single event, which happened in 732, or maybe 741, or even 735, or it could be earlier, or … we don’t really know, but it was around then.

Helping the Exarch

Paul the Deacon, towards the end of his unfinished Historia Langobardorum, wrote:

Again when Hildeprand the nephew of the king and Peredeo the duke of Vincentia (Vicenza) got possession of Ravenna, the Venetians suddenly attacked them. Hildeprand was taken by them and Peredeo fell fighting manfully.

The king is Liutprand, who ruled for the entire period we’ve been discussing.

The Lombards — not led by the king, who was elsewhere on kingly business — had taken Ravenna, the Roman capital in Italy, but were dislodged by a surprise counterattack by the Venetians. Not only that, but the Venetians also killed a Lombard duke and captured the king’s nephew.

That’s quite something, but there’s more.

We also have a papal letter, or maybe even two.

Here is the account of John the Deacon, which quoted the letter:

Also, on those days, the exarch, the primate of Ravenna, coming to Venice and demanding excessively from the Venetians that with their help to do so, he might defend and protect his own city, which Hildebrand, nephew of King Liutprand, and Paradeo, Duke of Vicenza, had held captive. The Venetians, favorable to his request, hastened with a fleet to Ravenna, a city of renown, approaching the city, and one of them, namely Hildeprand, was captured alive by them, while the other, who was called Paradeo, had fallen fighting fiercely, and in this manner, the city was decently restored to the aforementioned primate, the exarch.

Because of this matter, also Gregory, the apostolic of the city of Rome, with full eagerness to help the aforementioned city, sent his own letter, which is can be read below, to Antoninus, Patriarch of Grado, so that he should, with a loving entreaty, draw the Venetians to come to defend the same city.

“To my most beloved brother Antoninus, from Gregory. Because the city of Ravenna, which is the foremost of all, was captured by the unspeakable people of the Lombards, due to sin, and our distinguished son, the lord exarch, as we have learned, is staying in Venice, your fraternal holiness should give aid to him and with him jointly act in our stead, so that the city of Ravenna may be restored to its former state of service to the holy republic and empire of our lords and sons Leo and Constantine, the great emperors, so that with zeal and love for our holy faith we may be able to persevere steadfastly in the service of the republic and the empire with God’s help. May God keep you safe, most beloved brother.”

In an almost repeat of the changed letter mentioning Marcellus, Andrea Dandolo, in the 1340s, quoted an almost identical letter, addressed not to the patriarch, but to Ursus, duke of the Venetians.

If there were two letters, to the patriarch and to the duke, why did John the Deacon only mention the first?

There’s little doubt the events happened, we have several independent sources for that, but there’s no consensus on the dating.

John the Deacon even placed these events after the death of Ursus, but the usual dating of the letter (or letters) are between 726 and 735, and that is in line with Paul the Deacon too.

With such a scarcity of independent sources to duke Ursus, it is surprising that no scholars question his existence, just as they have done with Paulicius and Marcellus. It is not like we know much more about him than about them.

Maybe it’s all down to that phrase in the Liber Pontificalis, that they chose all leaders for themselves throughout Italy.

The Venetians were there, explicitly mentioned in the text, so it should apply to Venice too. There had to be a new doge in 726 or 727. Consequently, Ursus was saved from the indignity of the heap of discarded doges.

The official list of doges

Finally, …

Anybody, who’ve seen the traditional list of the 120 doges of Venice, will have noticed that most of the years I’ve mentioned until now, especially for Paulicius and Marcellus, are totally off.

John the Deacon got his chronology totally, utterly, completely messed up.

Nothing adds up in his narrative.

He was a very learned man, with access to important documents in the ducal archives, and regularly sent on important diplomatic missions on behalf of the doge and the dogado.

There’s little reason to believe that a man with that background and position couldn’t do basic addition and subtraction — or at least had access to and authority over people who could — which leads to the conclusion that getting the numbers right just wasn’t a concern for him.

John the Deacon lived at a time, when Venice was becoming more powerful and assertive. At his time, trade on the Adriatic was flourishing, and in 997, Venice had conquered Dalmatia and Istria. The doge was then “Duke of the Venetians and of Dalmatia.”

The Venetian state had become a very different place than it had been a few centuries earlier, when the Byzantines and the Lombards dominated Italy.

Venice needed a dignified and honourable origin narrative, and one of the purposes of the Istoria Veneticorum was to supply that. John the Deacon wanted to show that Venice had always been free and independent, from the very beginnings, which is why he tried to write the Byzantines out of the story, and make the relationship with the Lombard neighbours much more equal than it probably was.

So, where did the traditional list of doges come from? The one where Paulicius ruled from 697 to 717, Marcellus from 717 to 726, and Orso from 726 until he was assassinated in 737.

It comes from a much later chronicle, written in the 1340s by the 54th of the 120 doges.

I’ve already mentioned it a few times.

The Chronica per extensum descripta by Andrea Dandolo, doge from 1343 to 1354, had a political programme not dissimilar to that of John the Deacon.

If John the Deacon wrote at the very start of the rise of Venice, Dandolo wrote when Venice was at its highest and brightest. However, the purpose of the chronicle was much the same: to show that the Venetians had always been free and independent, that they owed nothing to anybody, and that they were justly destined for wealth, power and empire.

Dandolo needed to sort out the chronology, and he did that by having the reign of Paulicius end where John the Deacon had it start, and by shortening the reign of Marcellus, so the reign of Ursus could start as it should, with the riots after the iconoclast edict of 726.

He only addressed the most glaring issues in the narrative of the Istoria Veneticorum because the story itself served his purpose just fine. He fiddled with the chronology, and added or modified a few ‘sources’ here and there to back up the story.

Andrea Dandolo wasn’t any more preoccupied with telling the truth than John the Deacon. Their goal wasn’t to tell a true story, but to tell the right story. The right story from a very political Venetian perspective.