DANDOLO, the name of one of the most illustrious patrician families of Venice, of which the earliest recorded member was one of the electors of the first doge (A.D. 697). The Dandolo gave to Venice four doges ; of these the first and most famous was Enrico Dandolo (c. 112o 1205), elected on Jan. I, 1193 (more Veneto, 1912). Although over 7o years old and of weak sight (the story that he had been made blind by the emperor Manuel Comnenus while he was at Constantinople is a legend), he proved a most energetic and capable ruler. He re-established Venetian authority over the Dalmatians who had rebelled with the king of Hungary's protection, but he failed to capture Zara, owing to the arrival of the Pisan fleet, and although the latter was defeated by the Venetians, the undertaking was suspended. In the meanwhile the Eastern emperor Isaac II. Angelus had been deposed, and the new emperor Alexius was unfriendly to the Ve netians. Dandolo therefore listened to the proposals of the cru saders who asked Venice for free passage and the means of trans port. Dandolo subsidized the crusaders heavily, and, with a promise that payment would be deferred, persuaded them to turn aside and assist him in the reduction of Zara. Dandolo himself commanded the expedition, and Zara was taken and sacked. He then induced the crusaders to listen to the proposals of Isaac's son, Alexius, for the dethronement of the emperor Alexius. The fleet wintered at Zara, and then, under Dandolo's command, sailed for the Bosporus. For the capture and sack of Constantinople and the erection of the Latin empire, see CRUSADES.
Immense booty was secured, the Venetians obtaining among other treasures the four bronze horses which adorn the facade of St. Mark's. Dandolo was one of the candidates for the imperial throne of the new Latin empire, but Count Baldwin of Flanders was elected and crowned on May 23. The Venetians were given Crete and several other islands and ports in the Levant, which formed an uninterrupted chain from Venice to the Black Sea, a large part of Constantinople (whence the doge assumed the title of "lord of a quarter and a half of Romania"), and many valuable privileges. But hardly had the new state been established when various provinces rose in rebellion and the Bulgarians invaded Thrace. A Latin army was defeated by them at Adrianople (April 1205), and the emperor himself was captured and killed, the fragments of the force being saved only by Dandolo's prowess. But he was now old and ill, and on June 23, 1205 he died.
Enrico Dandolo's sons distinguished themselves in the public service, and his grandson Giovanni was doge from 1280 to 1289. The latter's son Andrea commanded the Venetian fleet in the war against Genoa in 1294, and, having been defeated and taken prisoner, he was so overwhelmed with shame that he committed suicide by beating his head against the mast (according to Andrea Navagero). Francesco Dandolo, also known as Dandolo Cane, was doge from 1329 to 1339. During his reign the Venetians went to war with Martino della Scala, lord of Verona, with the result that they occupied Treviso and otherwise extended their possessions on the terra firma. Andrea Dandolo (c. 1307-1354), the last doge of the family, reigned from 1343 to 1354. He had been the first Venetian noble to take a degree at the university of Padua, where he had also been professor of jurisprudence. The terrible plague of 1348, wars with Genoa, against whom the great naval victory of Lojera was won in 1353, many treaties, and the subjugation of the seventh revolt of Zara, are the chief events of his reign. The poet Petrarch, who was the doge's intimate friend, was sent to Venice on a peace mission by Giovanni Vis conti, lord of Milan. "Just, incorruptible, full of zeal and of love for his country, and at the same time learned, of rare eloquence, wise, affable, and humane," is the poet's verdict on Andrea Dan dolo (Varior. epist. xix.). Dandolo died on Sept. 7, 1354. He is chiefly famous as a historian, and his Annals to the year 128o are one of the chief sources of Venetian history for that period; they have been published by Muratori (Rer. Ital. Script. tom. xxi.). He also had a new code of lal,vs compiled (issued in 1346) in addition to the statute of Jacopo Tiepolo. Another well-known member of this family was Silvestro Dandolo 0796-1866), son of Girolamo Dandolo, who was the last admiral of the Venetian republic and died an Austrian admiral in 1847. Silvestro was an Italian patriot and took part in the revolution of 1848. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-S. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia (Venice, 1853) ; among more recent books H. Kretschmayr's excellent Geschichte von Venedig (Gotha, 19o5) should be consulted: it con tains a bibliography of the authorities and all the latest researches and discoveries; C. Cipolla and G. Monticolo have published many essays and editions of chronicles in the Archivio Veneto, and the "Fonti per la Storia d'Italia," in the Istituto storico italiano; H. Simonsfeld has written a life of Andrea Dandolo in German (Munich 1876).