Pietro Ziani
Doge of Venice
Pietro Ziani (died 13 March 1230) was the Doge of Venice from 15 August 1205 to 1229, succeeding Enrico Dandolo. He was the son of Doge Sebastian Ziani of the very rich noble family. He was married to Maria Baseggio and Constance of Sicily.
In his youth a sailor, he commanded a flotilla escorting the emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1177, took also part in the Fourth Crusade and sacking of Constantinople. After his election, Ziani is said to consider the transfer of the capital of the Republic to Constantinople, but eventually the Council decided against it. Instead, he organized the Venetian acquisitions in the territory of the Latin Empire: Crete, Corfu, other islands and the substantial part of Constantinople itself, demanding an oath from the Venetian colony in the city. Ziani established also commercial ties with the post-Byzantine states, signing in 1210 a treaty with the despotate of Epirus under Michael I Komnenos Doukas.
According to the Cronaca Altinate, he strove to maintain peace with Padua after an incident at a festival in Treviso so that Venice could concentrate on its new Greek territories. He was forced to fend off a Paduan invasion in the War of the Castle of Love (1215).
Ziani abdicated in February 1229.
“Pietro Ziani” enters the record as doge of Venice. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pietro, Ziani and Doge can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q666431. VIAF identifies the subject as 316739261. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1230, 1205, 1229 and 1177.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pietro Ziani” 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.