BUCENTAUR, the State galley of the doges of Venice, on which, every year on Ascension day up to '789, they put into the Adriatic in order to perform the ceremony of "wedding the sea." The name bucintoro is derived from the Ital. buzino d' oro, "golden bark," and seems to have been given to any sumptuous Venetian galley. The last and most magnificent of the bucentaurs, built in 1729, was destroyed by the French in 1798 for the sake of its golden decorations. Remains of it are preserved at Venice in the Museo Civico Correr and in the Arsenal.
The "Marriage of the Adriatic," or more correctly "of the sea" (Sposalizio del Mar) was a ceremony symbolizing the maritime dominion of Venice, established about A.D. 1000 to commemorate the doge Orseolo II.'s conquest of Dalmatia. The form it took was a solemn procession of boats, headed by the doge's maesta nave, afterwards the Bucentaur (from 131I), out to sea by the Lido port. To this ancient ceremony a sacramental character was given by Pope Alexander III. in 1177, in return for the services rendered by Venice in the struggle against the emperor Frederick I. The pope drew a ring from his finger and, giving it to the doge, bade him cast such a one into the sea each year on Ascension day, and so wed the sea. Henceforth the ceremonial, instead of pla catory and expiatory, became nuptial. Every year the doge dropped a consecrated ring into the sea and with the words Des ponsamus te, mare (We wed thee, sea) declared Venice and the sea to be indissolubly one.