Michele Steno
Doge of Venice (1331-1413)
Michele Steno (Michiel Sten in Venetian Language; 1331 – 26 December 1413) was a Venetian statesman who served as the 63rd Doge of Venice from 1 December 1400 until his death. He is remembered as the ruler crucial for establishing the Domini di Terraferma, in the aftermath of the War of Padua.
Biography
Steno was born in Venice into a family of some, though not great, wealth, and had lived a dissolute life in youth; he and a number of other young men were at one point nearly executed by the government for covering the Doge Marino Faliero's throne with "ignominious" inscriptions against him and his spouse, Aluycia Gradenigo. He later served as proveditor of Venice, and proved a capable diplomat.
In 1400 he was elected as doge as a compromise choice, since previous votes had become deadlocked. Upon becoming Doge he took to dressing like Lorenzo Celsi, who had been known for his elegance of dress. In his accession's year, Venice begun a successful war against Padua and its lord, Francesco da Carrara, leading to a substantial expansion of the republic in the Italian mainland. During the Christian schism of 1408, Venice sided with Pope Alexander V.
An old and ill man in his late years, Steno died in 1413, and was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.
Steno was succeeded as Doge by Tommaso Mocenigo.
Cultural references
Michele Steno is honored as the dedicatee of Johannes Ciconia's motet, "Venecia, mundi splendor/Michael, qui Stena domus," probably on the occasion of Padua's submission to Venetian rule.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Michele Steno” as doge of Venice (1331-1413). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q541090. VIAF identifies the subject as 172572416. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1331, 1413, 1400 and 1408.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michele Steno” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.