The Venetian Doge Condemned in Memory

Doge himself for hundreds of years. But it's far from your typical medieval palace. Its relatively simple, rectangular structure is balanced by a delicate pattern of pink and white bricks, with intricate stonework elements and plenty of arches along the balcony and arcade below. Along with the basilica attached to it, The palace dominates the eastern end of Piazza San Marco, Venice's largest and most iconic square that for centuries was the center of civic and religious life in the city.

The palace became a museum in nineteen twenty three. Each room in the palace, from those making up the Doge's apartments to the institutional chambers for the Republic's many governing bodies, is adorned to an almost absurd extent. There are hand carved furnishings, gilded accents, and on nearly every wall and ceiling a mural painted by someone famous, though our tour guide did note a few murals that were recreatedations Napoleon

having stolen the originals. Even the bridge from the main palace to the now defunct prison has a breath taking view of the lagoon. That bridge is aptly called the Bridge of Size, because famously that was the sound reportedly heard over the centuries from prisoners taking one last look at the outside world before they were locked up. But perhaps the most splendid room in the palace is the Chamber of the Great Council. It's one of the largest rooms in Europe, a fun fact that you might not

think much of until you're actually inside of it. It is massive and imposing, almost one hundred and seventy five feet long and over eighty feet wide, with fifteen foot ceilings, and nearly every surface is covered either inornate gold, dramatic dark wood, or an intricate, gigantic painted mural. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the dizzying amount of art in

the chamber. You could strain your neck trying to take in the twenty one murals that grace the walls alone, featuring work by the likes of Tintoretto, Palma the Younger, and Varones. But if you can tear your eyes away from the big ticket art, right along the top of the walls, going all the way around the room are a series of smaller portrait freezes, all quite similar and

easy to miss if you aren't careful. The portraits, all painted in the sixteenth century, immortalize the likenesses of seventy six Doges who reigned in Venice from eight hundred and four to fifteen fifty six portraits depict each Doge in his regalia, each holding an obnoxiously long and wavy piece of parchment bearing his greatest achievements during his reign. That is, except for one there's a break in the parade of Doges.

Instead of a portrait, there's just a painting of a black drape, as if to protect viewers from laying their eyes upon some great shame, and to deny the fallen doge the honor of being remembered. In thirteen fifty five, the Doze in power decided that just being the head of a republic wasn't enough, and he attempted to stage a coup that would prove a disastrous and tragic failure. In a room otherwise filled with color and detail and

glittering odes to the serene republic. The black out portrait certainly makes it clear that this doge had made some fatal error, but as if a big old black box weren't signal enough that he screwed up. The drape also has an inscription painted in bold gold letters that leaves no doubt as to the Doge's fate. It reads, in Latin, he asked locus Marini filetro decapititi po creminibus. This is the place of Marino Faliero beheaded for his crimes. I'm

Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The early history of Venice is a blend of myth and reality, bolstered by a lack of historical records and an abundance of dramatic flare tradition has it that Venice was founded on March twenty fifth, in the year four hundred and twenty one CE, at exactly the stroke of noon. Three consuls from nearby Padua were said to have founded the city that would become an empire, with the establishment of a trading post on the islands of the Rialto and the

consecration of a church dedicated to Saint James. The mainland making up the coast of the Venetian Lagoon, which the Venetians would come to call the Terra Firma, was likely settled in the second century by Roman refugees from what is now northern Italy, who ran to the coast as they were fleeing Germanic and hun invaders. Successive invasions over

the course of several hundred years continue to push them further. Finally, after the invasion of the Lombards in five hundred and sixty eight, we begin to see references in documents to the in Kalai Lacouni, or the Lagoon dwellers, those who had not only begun to take refuge on the islands in the Lagoon, but had fashioned them to their benefit by building embankments, allowing them to thrive in what had

previously been an uninhabitable environment. According to legend, the lagoon dwellers elected their first doge in six hundred ninety seven, But the first doze for whom we have historical evidence was elected by the twelve major families of Venice a few decades later, in seven hundred twenty six or seven

hundred and twenty seven. But unlike most of the dukes that you know, who tended to either answer to a king or rule an area as sovereign, the Venetian Doge from the very beginning, was intended as the head of a republic. The doge was the head of state, but a great deal of political power rested in the hands of the Concho, the People's Assembly, which consisted originally of all male citizens and patricians, that is, nobles of Venice.

The Concho initially had the responsibility of appointing the Doge. The doge wasn't a hereditary position, but an elected one. The same went for the members of the Great Council, a group of so called wise men appointed by the Concho to assist the Doge in governance. All this to say, the history of Venice, and more importantly Venetian's idea of the history of Venice was ever present as the Republic continued to grow and change into the Middle Ages and

far beyond. Central to the Venetian civic identity was this traditional story of a group of people coming together to collectively defend themselves against a common enemy and to build their city literally from the ground up together. It was this steadfast commitment to the idea of the republic and what it stood for that earned Venice its nickname La Serenissima, meaning the most serene. However, contrary to this self given moniker,

medieval Venice was not without its rumblings. Marino Faliera was born in twelve seventy four, and by that time Venice had seen a number of significant political shifts as the city wrestled between its republican ideals and the hunger of a growing elite class who wanted more power. We know very little, if anything, about Marino Falierro's early life. He was the son of Yaho Capo Falieriro and Bariola Lurdon,

and was one of three sons. He had an uncle who shared his name, which has led to some confusion over the years. In the historical record, we know the Faliero family was patrician, which was particularly important given that in twelve ninety seven, when Faliero was twenty three, the nobles of Venice orchestrated what came to be known as

the Great Lockout. The Great Council moved to make membership in its ranks hereditary rather than elected, essentially stripping the Concho of its power, including the power to elect the Doge, and creating a closed noble class in the city. Venice continued to call itself a republic, but it was now very much an oligarchy. Despite our sparse history of his early life, we do know that Falierro's early polite medical career was defined by dealing with the aftermath of that lockout.

His first documented appearance in the historical record finds him

rising in these now closed ranks. On October tenth, thirteen fifteen, at forty one years old, he was on the newly formed Council of ten, an inquisitorial arm of the Venetian government, when it decided to reward the man who had killed Niccolo Quarini, who had played an instrumental role in an attempted coup that had taken place a few years prior that conspiracy had happened in thirteen ten, when Niccolo Quarini, Baiamonte Tiepolo and other conspirators had attempted to overthrow the

Venetian government in order to restore the power of the concho. For a number of reasons, including poor planning and bad weather, their plan failed. The Council of Ten, which Falierra was on, was originally formed to deal with the aftermath of that conspiracy, instituting the election of you guessed it, ten noblemen who were tasked with prosecuting crimes against the state. When Tiepolo surrendered, the ten exiled him and sentenced him to be quote

condemned in memory. This was a legal punishment at the time that could be pretty wide ranging in what it actually looked like, but the intended effect was to remove a person from official accounts or public memory. The punishment of being condemned in memory was not really about complete erasure, though it was more symbolic than anything else, meant mostly as a social punishment to a person's descendants and associates, and a cautionary tale to anyone who would dare challenge

the nobility's power. So think less nineteen eighty four and more burn from the musical Hamilton. Eliza knows that her burning her letters won't mean that no one will ever know who her husband was in the future. But without those letters, the story that we tell about him will

be different. Forgive the musical theater reference, but it seemed fitting for Tiapolo being condemned in memory meant that his house was demolished, and in its place a so called column of infamy was erected, the column which a henchman of Tiapolo's would later lose his eyes and a hand for attempting to destroy. Read roughly translated, this land belonged to Baiamante, and now for his inquisitous betrayal, this has been placed to frighten others and to show these words

to everyone forever. If all this sounds a little, I don't know familiar, hold that thought. Marino Follieri remained on the Council of Ten for another five years after his first appearance in its records. Over the following decades, Falierro continued to be appointed to various government positions that saw him accumulate a good deal of power and a great

deal of respect. He would actually go on to serve on the Council of Ten several more times, occasionally at its head, interspersed with stints engaging in mercantile trade, serving on a tribunal, mediating disputes between commoners, captaining a galley ship, and representing Venice abroad as a diplomat. In thirteen forty three, he was in the running for Doge, but in a shocking upset, thirty seven year old Andrea Dandolo was elected instead.

The position of Doge, although elected, was traditionally given to the eldest and most experienced member of the patriciate, and Faliero outr ranked Dandolo in both regards. It must have been a real blow to the older man's ego, but if it was, he never let on. Valiero continued to serve Venice faithfully. By September seventh, thirteen fifty four, when Dandolo died at only forty eight years old, Marino Falieriro was in Avignon, serving as the ambassador of Venice to

Pope Innocent the sixth. Meanwhile, Venice buried the Doge, and then the Great Council began the comically complicated process of selecting his successor put in place to attempt to prevent any one noble from making a power grab. The process began with the convening of the council and now bear with me for a system that seems almost insanely baroque

and complex. So once the Great Council had convened, the youngest councilor present would be sent outside palace to choose a random eight to ten year old child off the street who would serve essentially as the Vana White of the Dojal election. This random child was responsible for drawing smooth metal balls called belote where the word ballot comes from, with the names of councilors written on them. Thirty council members would be chosen this way, and then from those thirties,

the child would choose nine names. Those nine councilors would choose of their own volition forty councilors, and then out of those forty, the random street child would choose twelve. The twelve would then choose twenty five councilors, and then

from those the child would draw nine. Those nine would choose forty five, and the child of those forty five would randomly draw eleven, and then those eleven would choose forty one, and then the those forty one people would elect the doge, and of those forty one electors, thirty five this time around voted for Marino Faliero, one of the oldest and most honorable members of the Venetian nobility

who had given decades of service to the Republic. A messenger was soon sent to Avignon to retrieve him, and a group of twelve ambassadors met him in Verona to formally give him the good news. He was eighty years old, but Marino Faliero was finally, finally the Doge of Venice. He had reached the pinnacle, the ultimate goal of any noble Venetian. How victorious he must have felt on that boat coming into his city, watching Venice emerge slowly over

the water as if to welcome him home. But perhaps his serenity, like the Republic whose honorific he now shared, also had the sense that something else was bubbling under the surface. Marino Faliero returned to Venice in October thirteen fifty four as the ruler of a city in turmoil.

The Republic had been at war with Genoa again, and barely two months into Faliero's tenure as Doge, Venice faced an embarrassing naval defeat against Genoa in the Battle of Porto Lungo, the result of poor strategy on the part of the Venetian naval forces. While Genoa gathered power in the wake of its victory, the Venetian people grew restless. Resentment against the nobility had been brewing since the Great Lockout, but it seemed now to be reaching a boiling point.

It was in this environment of tension, with the threat of the Genoese on the horizon, that things began to take a turn toward the treasonous for Marino Faliero almost immediately after his reign as Doge began. There is much we do not know for sure about the lead up to what has been termed the Faliero Coup. There is uncertainty even about why he did it at all. At first glance, it seems at odds with Falierro's character and history.

How could this man who had seemingly spent decades in service of Venice without causing any trouble turn on his beloved republic so suddenly In classic Venetian fashion. There is a traditional story on one hand, and a less interesting, more complicated, but ultimately more likely theory. On the other we'll start with the juicy story. Obviously not long into Falierro's reign, it seems early thirteen fifty five Faliero married a woman named Alquina Grattenigo, the daughter of a former doge,

Pietro Grottenigo. This was not Faliero's first marriage, but we don't know much about his first wife. She may have been named Thomasina Contarini, and it seems that they had two daughters, Lucia and Pinola. In any case, Alquina, at forty five years old, was much younger than her husband, only slightly more than half of Faliero's age. The truth is we know pretty little about her too, but the story tends to paint her as a fourteenth century gold digger, beautiful, vivacious,

and most of all licentious. According to the story, she was rumored to have been engaging in affairs with numerous members of the patrician class. During a carnival celebration at the Doge's palace in thirteen fifty five, it is said that Doge Faliero observed one of these nobles, the twenty four year old Michel Steno flirting with the Dogaressa, or possibly flirting with one of her ladies in waiting. Either way. Incensed at the disrespectful actions of the young noble, Faliero

kicked Steno out of the festivities. The incident would have certainly rankled the aging doge to see his beautiful, younger wife receiving attention from a much younger man, But the real kicker came reportedly hours later, when Steno snuck back into the palace under cover of night and carved an insult into Faliero's chair in the chamber of the Great Council. It got right to the heart of the matter. Quote Marino Falliero with the beautiful wife, he maintains her and

others enjoy her. For this act, the story goes, Steno was a rested, but still Falierro wasn't satisfied. He wasn't just angry at Steno, but at the entire Patricia. After his decades of service, this was how they were paid him by sleeping with his wife and defacing the symbols

of his office. He thought of the other city states of Italy, whose dukes commanded almost absolute power in comparison to his they would never have been humiliated in that way, and if they were, the punishment would have surely been more severe. Well maybe it could be. Of course, there isn't really much actual historical evidence to support this salacious revenge story, and it seems to have begun spreading much later, which is generally a good historical indicator that the story

didn't really happen. It's more likely that Falierro's quarrels with the nobility were political in nature and bolstered by the class tensions brought on by the lockout and stoked by the war with Genoa. If indeed he looked to the other city states and to the absolute power wielded by their dukes, Faliero was probably thinking less about punishing his personal enemies and more about how a singular, powerful doge might benefit Venice. We also can't discount simple greed or

hunger for power. At his trial, Falierro seemed to regret the coup and framed it more as a crime of passion than a calculated political scheme, never mentioning any belief that absolute rulership would benefit Venice. It's possible he simply saw an opportunity to have it all and tried to take it. Whatever the reason, it seems that the conspiracy began to take shape in in the early spring of

thirteen fifty five. It was then that Faliero connected with Bertuccio Isirello and Filippo Calendario, two men who were among the class of Venetians who were respected and wealthy, but still excluded from the closed noble class. We don't know much about Isorello, but Calendario was an architect and was in fact among the designers of the DOJ's Palace that you can still see today. The plot had less the air of a popular revolution and more the air of

a pyramid scheme. The idea was that Faliero and Isorello would each recruit twenty men to their cause, and each of those men were going to recruit another forty after that, though the plot becomes very very simple in a manner of speaking, kill all the nobles and their families. The plan was to wait until in April fifteenth at dawn, attacking at the stroke of the bells from San Marco.

Without the nobility, power in Venice would shift back to where it belonged to the people, or perhaps more accurately, to the one noble who wouldn't be killed, the Doge leading the people. Things started off well enough. The conspirators found sympathy, especially with those working in maritime trade, who were particularly resentful of the nobility in the wake of

the Battle of Porto Lungo. The best part was that, given the recruitment structure of the coup, the Doge's involvement was really only known to the inner circle of a few trusted men. It was that lack of transparency, though, that would ultimately prove to be Faliero's downfall. On the night before the coup was set to take place, one conspirator who had been roped into the pyramid scheme, a man named beltrom attempted to warn the Procurator of San Marco,

Niccolo Leone of the impending danger. Beltrommee had no knowledge of Falierro's involvement, and so Leon of course went straight to the Doze with his concerns. When Falierro dismissed them, however, suspicion began to set in. Beltrommee seemed to have his information on good authority. Why did the Doze just brush them off? Leon brought his concerns to a few trusted members of the Great Council. It turned out that Beltroma was not the only conspirator who had squealed, and several

other nobles had also been warned of the plot. It was becoming clear that something was very, very wrong, and that Faliero may have had something to do with it. Within hours, the Council of Ten was convened, along with every major magistracy in the Republic except the Doge. As nobles filed into the Piazza San Marco, armed to the teeth and awaiting reinforcements, Philippo Callandario and Bertucci Isirello were arrested.

Under interrogation and likely torture, they revealed the names of many of their fellow conspirators, including that of Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice. On April fifteenth, the day that would have changed Venetian history forever, nine of the conspirators, including Calendario and Isarello, were hanged from the arches of the Doge's palace. Legend has it that they were hanged with bits in their mouths so that they couldn't use their last words to shout to the crowd watching from

the square. Below and stir up even more anti patrician. Several other conspirators were sentenced to life imprisonment. With that done, the nobles had to turn their attention to their greatest betrayal, the Doge himself. The Council of Ten, the very council from which Falierro himself had prosecuted a similar conspiracy just forty years earlier, presided over the trial, along with the Minor Council and the Zonta, which were all tasked with

mitigating the Doja's authority. The trial was quick and somber, and by the next day a verdict had been reached. The Doge's fate was sealed on April seventeenth, thirteen fifty five, after fewer than seven months in office, and just two days after he thought he would be the Lord of Venice, Marino Faliero was sentenced to death. This would not be

a public execution. If Venetians knew anything was how to spin a story, and they knew the difference between a trader and a martyr is often a matter of optics. They had made a display of the commoners they executed. It was also important to show the might of the republic against those who would destroy it. But a doze who had turned on his own government was another matter entirely. There would be no opportunity for Marino Faliero to become

a popular hero in death. Instead, the sentence would be carried out in Falieriro's own home, in the courtyard of the Doge's palace. Despite its privacy, however, the execution was very much a performance in the presence of the entire nobility, the men with whom Falierro had worked with for decades and then betrayed. The fallen Doze was led by procession

into the courtyard. Members of the Council of Ten stripped him of his royal regale before he was beheaded with a sword to complete the story and likely also to satisfy curious commoners. Once the deed was done, one of the ten leaned out of a balcony with a bloody sword in one hand and Faliero's head in the other. He announced their victory. Look justice has been done to the trader. On that day in thirteen fifty five, Marino Faliero's new legacy was cemented, but his punishment was far

from over. Like Baiamante Tiapolo before him, Falieriro was sentenced to dominetio memorie, being condemned in memory. In addition to his removal from official records, the day of his conviction, April sixteenth, would be marked every year, and subsequent dojes would hold a precession and ceremony in Piazza San Marco

to remember Falierro's tragic betrayal and inevitable defeat. Legend has it that all of the coinage from Faliero's reign, which would have borne his likeness, was melted down, although it's more likely that, given how short his reign was, it

simply hadn't been minted yet. But Marino Faliero's sentence wouldn't really be complete until eleven years later, in thirteen sixty six, when the Council of Ten decreed that his portrait in the Chamber of the Great Council should be painted over and an inscription placed in its stead hic fuits locus ser Marina Feletri decapitated pro crimine pro di tiones. This was the place of Sir Marino Fallieri beheaded for the

crime of treason. You may have noticed that that's not quite the inscription I read at the beginning of this episode. That's because in fifteen seven twenty seven, over two hundred years after Marina Fellieri's execution, a fire destroyed significant portions of the DOJ's Palace, including the chamber of the Great Council. When it was rebuilt, new paintings had to be commissioned to replace the old, including the set of portraits and the portrait that had been painted over that had been

present in the previous iteration of the chamber. Instead of simply omitting his portrait, the Venetian government chose to keep the spirit of Falierro's condemnation, commissioning the black drape with the inscription. As you can still see today, there's no

portrait under the new painting. However, with the fire, the last vestiges of the memory of who Marino Faliero had been before the coup, devoted politician, defender of Venice, long and faithful servant to the republic, had finally been erased, leaving only Marino Fallieri, the trader and his punishment in his place. That's the story of Marino Faliero's ill fated conspiracy.

But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about how an unexpected historical figure helped to resurrect his memory. A few months after spending a couple of rainy days writing scary stories with his fellow romantics at Villa Diadatti, the famed poet and noble blood favorite Lord Byron found himself in Venice for the first time. It was the winter of eighteen sixteen. The abdication of the last Doge of Venice, who had capitulated to Napoleon, had happened not

quite ten years prior. Although the city's millennium or so long tenure as a serene republic was well and truly over, the memory of its glittering, powerful past was still very

much alive. Byron didn't intend to stay in Venice for too long, but on brand as ever, he met a girl, several girls, actually, all of them married, and that's a story for another episode maybe, But because of his illicit romantic pursuits, Byron ended up staying in Venice longer than planned, three years in fact, and it ended up having a

significant impact on his work. Between swimming at the beach on Ledo, learning Armenian from a community of monks, and of course, arming married women in their fancy Venetian palazzos. Byron had the opportunity to spend some time in the Doge's Palace, which at the time still housed some administrative and cultural offices. It's clear that the palace stuck with him.

In fact, it was Byron who gave the bridge of size, translated from the Italian Pontide Soupire its famed English moniker, when he wrote about it in his verse poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage. I stood in Venice on a bridge of size, a palace and a prison on each hand. But something else in the Doje's Palace struck our dear Byron, the black veil painted in the chamber of the Great Council.

He would later write that seeing Marino Faliero's absent portrait, along with the great staircase leading into the courtyard where the Doge had been executed, had quote struck forcibly upon his imagination, so much so that in fact, in eighteen twenty he published a tragic play dramatizing Marino Faliero's strange and tragic story. To Byron, who had spent time reading Venetian chronicles, hunting for the Doge's grave and learning everything

he could about Venetian history. Marino Faliero was quote a man of talent and courage, but also a quote fiery character plagued by an ungovernable temper. A failure as a ruler, perhaps, but as a compelling dramatic figure. Byron could think of no one better suited to the position. Byron's play, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice was meant mostly to be read, and it was, but it was also performed in in London shortly after its publication in eighteen twenty one. Two middling reviews.

Byron maintained that critics who disliked the play were just disappointed there wasn't a romance plot in it. Nevertheless, the play was influential. The painter Eugene Delacroix's gruesome depiction of Falierro's beheading on the Giant Staircase, completed in eighteen twenty

five or twenty six, was drawn from Byron's writing. A later performance of Byron's play in eighteen twenty nine would also inspire the playwright Casimir Delvin to offer his own spin on the Faliero story, which would in turn inspire Gaetano Donizetti's opera Marino Faliero, which premiered in Paris in eighteen thirty five. Byron's curiosity and the play that came of it restored some piece of Marino Faliero's life and legacy.

Though certainly not the paragon of historical accuracy, it allowed generations of people to think beyond the blacked out portrait and the boogeyman story of the evil doge who almost destroyed Venice. What we've been left with, funnily enough, is a figure who is elusive and dramatic, part fiction and part fact, in other words, unmistakably Venetian. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankee.

Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.