OTTONE

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 Kohlschtitter, 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) .