Orseolo, the name of a Venetian family, three members of which filled the office of doge. Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venezsia) is the capital of region Veneto, and has a population of 271,663 (census estimate January 1, 2004). ... Grand Procession of the Doge, 16th century For about a thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. ...

• Pietro I Orseolo (c. 928-997) acted as ambassador to the emperor Otto I before he was elected doge in August 976. Just previous to this event part of Venice had been burned down and Pietro began the rebuilding of St. Mark's Basilica and the ducal palace. He is chiefly celebrated, however, for his piety and his generosity, and after holding office for two years he left Venice secretly and retired to a monastery in Aquitaine, where he passed his remaining days. He was canonized in 1731.

• Pietro II Orseolo (d. 1009), a son of the previous doge, was himself elected to this office in 991. He was a great builder, but his chief work was to crush the pirates of the Adriatic Sea and to bring a long stretch of the Dalmatian coast under the rule of Venice, thus relieving the commerce of the republic from a great and pressing danger. The fleet which achieved this result was led by the doge in person; it sailed on Ascension Day, 9 May 1000, and its progress was attended with uninterrupted success. In honor of this victory the Venetians instituted the ceremony which afterwards grew into the sposalizio del mar, or marriage of the sea, and which was celebrated each year on Ascension Day, while the doge added to his title that of duke of Dalmatia. In many other ways Pietro's services to the state were considerable, and he may be said to be one of the chief founders of the commercial greatness of Venice. The doge was on very friendly terms with the emperor Otto III and also with the emperors at Constantinople, and in 1003 he sailed against the Saracens and compelled them to raise the siege of Bari. In 1003 his son Giovanni was associated with him in the dogeship, and on Giovanni's death in 1007 another son, Ottone, succeeded to this position.

• Otto Orseolo (d. 1032), whose godfather was the emperor Otto III, became sole doge on his father's death in 1009. He married a sister of St. Stephen, king of Hungary, and under his rule Venice was powerful and prosperous. One of his brothers, Orso, was patriarch of Grado; another, Vitalis, was bishop of Torcello, but the growing wealth and influence of the Orseolo family soon filled the Venetians with alarm. About 1024 Ottone and Orso were driven from Venice, but when Orso's rival, Poppo, patriarch of Aquileia, seized Grado, the exiled doge and his brother was recalled and Grado was recovered. In 1026 Ottone was banished; he found a refuge in Constantinople, where he remained until his death, although in 1030 an embassy invited him to return to Venice, where his brother Orso acted as agent for fourteen months. Orso remained patriarch of Grado until his death in 1045, and another member of the Orseolo family, Domenico, was doge for a single day in 1031. After the fall of the Orseoli the Venetians decreed that no doge should name his successor, or associate any one with him in the dogeship. Ottone's son, Pietro, was king of Hungary for some time after the death of his uncle, St. Stephen, in 1038.

See Kohlschvitter, Venedig unter dem Herzog Peter II. Orseolo (Gottingen, 1868); H. F. Brown, Venice (1895); F. C. Hodgson, The Early History of Venice (1901); and W. C. Hazlitt, The Venetian Republic (1900). Events Dao Kang Di succeeds Gong Hui Di and is followed in the same year by Tai Zu, all of the Dali Gu Dynasty in southeast China. ... Events City of Gdansk is founded Saint Adalbert of Prague is sent to Prussia by Boleslaus I of Poland Samuil of Bulgaria crowned Tsar by Pope Gregory V The town of Trondheim is founded. ... San Marco di Venezia, as seen from the Piazza San Marco St Marks Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco in Venezia) is the most famous of the churches of Venice and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. ... Monastery of St. ... Location Administration Capital Bordeaux Regional President Alain Rousset (PS) (since 1998) Départements Dordogne Gironde Landes Lot-et-Garonne Pyrénées-Atlantiques Arrondissements 18 Cantons 235 Communes 2,296 Statistics Land area1 41,309 km² Population (Ranked 6th)  - January 1, 2005 est. ... This article discusses the process of declaring saints. ... Events 10 Downing Street becomes the official residence of the United Kingdoms Prime Minister when Robert Walpole moves in. ... Pietro II Orseolo was the Doge of Venice from 991 to 1009. ... Events February 14: First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg. ... Events Battle of Maldon Sweyn I of Denmark recovers his throne Births Deaths Theophanu, empress, mother of Otto III Emperor Enyu of Japan Categories: 991 ... Look up pirate and piracy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A satellite image of the Adriatic Sea. ... Dalmatia, highlighted, on a map of Croatia. ... For other meanings see Ascension (disambiguation) The Ascension is one of the great feasts in the Christian liturgical calendar, and commemorates the bodily Ascension of Jesus into Heaven forty days after his resurrection from the dead. ... May 9 is the 129th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (130th in leap years). ... Europe in 1000 The year 1000 of the Gregorian Calendar was the last year of the 10th century as well as the last year of the first millennium. ... Map of Constantinople. ... Events Sweyn I of Denmark begins his first invasion of England. ... Location within Italy Bari is the capital of the province of Bari and of the Apulia (or Puglia) region, on the Adriatic sea, in Italy. ... Aethelred buys two years of peace with the Danes for 36,000 pounds of silver. ... Otto Orseolo (Italian: Ottone Orseolo, also Urseolo; died 1032) was the Doge of Venice from 1008 to 1026. ... Events February 2 - Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, becomes King of Burgundy. ... A godparent, in some denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a childs baptism. ... King Stephens statue in his hometown, Esztergom A statue of the king in Miskolc Saint Stephen I (Hungarian: ; Latin: ; Slovak: , German: ) (circa 975 – 15 August 1038) was a ruling prince of Hungary, the first King of Hungary and a ruling prince of Nitra. ... Grado (Gravo in the local Venetian dialect, Grau in Friulian) is a town in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located on a peninsula of the Adriatic Sea between Venice and Trieste. ... This article is about a title or office in religious bodies. ... Torcello is a quiet island at the northern end of the Venetian Lagoon. ... This article is about the year. ... Events Archbishop Ariberto crowns Conrad II King of Italy in Milan. ... Events July 29 - Battle of Stiklestad in Norway. ... Events Emperor Go-Reizei ascends the throne of Japan. ... Events Collapse of the Moorish Caliphate of Córdoba. ... Peter Urseolo (or Orseolo) was the second king of Hungary and reigned from 1038 till 1041 and from 1044 till 1046 after a brief interruption of three years in which Sámuel Aba ruled the nation. ... Events Independent declaration of Western Xia. ...

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.