Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Venice transformed
itself from a struggling merchant commune to a powerful maritime
empire that would shape events in the Mediterranean for the next
four hundred years. In this magisterial new book on medieval
Venice, Thomas F. Madden traces the city-state's extraordinary rise
through the life of Enrico Dandolo (c. 1107--1205), who ruled
Venice as doge from 1192 until his death. The scion of a prosperous
merchant family deeply involved in politics, religion, and
diplomacy, Dandolo led Venice's forces during the disastrous Fourth
Crusade (1201--1204), which set out to conquer Islamic Egypt but
instead destroyed Christian Byzantium. Yet despite his influence on
the course of Venetian history, we know little about Dandolo, and
much of what is known has been distorted by myth.
The first full-length study devoted to Dandolo's life and times,
Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice corrects the many
misconceptions about him that have accumulated over the centuries,
offering an accurate and incisive assessment of Dandolo's motives,
abilities, and achievements as doge, as well as his role -- and
Venice's -- in the Fourth Crusade. Madden also examines the means
and methods by which the Dandolo family rose to prominence during
the preceding century, thus illuminating medieval Venice's singular
political, social, and religious environment. Culminating with the
crisis precipitated by the failure of the Fourth Crusade, Madden's
groundbreaking work reveals the extent to which Dandolo and his
successors became torn between the anxieties and apprehensions of
Venice's citizens and its escalating obligations as a Mediterranean
power.
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