Enrico Dandolo

His Serenity Enrico Dandolo
An engraving of Enrico Dandolo, from the early 19th century.
41st Doge of Venice
In office 21 June 1192 – ? May 1205
Preceded by	Orio Mastropiero
Succeeded by	Pietro Ziani
Personal details
Born	1107 Republic of Venice
Died	1205 (aged 98) Constantinople, Latin Empire
Resting place	Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
Spouse(s)	Felicita Bembo (d. 1151) Contessa Minotto (m. in 1151)
Children	Ranieri Fantino Vitale Marino
Profession	Patrician, statesman
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Enrico Dandolo (anglicised as Henry Dandolo and Latinized as Henricus Dandulus; c. 1107 – May 1205) was the 41st Doge of Venice from 1192 until his death. He is remembered for his blindness, piety, longevity, and shrewdness, and is infamous for his role in the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople in which he, at age ninety and blind, led the Venetian contingent.

Born in Venice, he was the son of the powerful jurist and member of the ducal court, Vitale Dandolo. Dandolo had served the Republic in diplomatic roles (as ambassador to Ferrara and bailus in Constantinople) for many years.

Dandolo was from a socially and politically prominent Venetian family. His father Vitale was a close adviser of Doge Vitale II Michiel, while an uncle, also named Enrico Dandolo, was patriarch of Grado, the highest-ranking churchman in Venice. Both these men lived to be quite old, and the younger Enrico was overshadowed until he was in his sixties.

Dandolo's first important political roles were during the crisis years of 1171 and 1172. In March 1171 the Byzantine government had seized the goods of thousands of Venetians living in the Empire, and then imprisoned them all. Popular demand forced the doge to gather a retaliatory expedition, which however fell apart when struck by the plague early in 1172. Dandolo had accompanied the disastrous expedition against Constantinople led by Doge Vitale Michiel during 1171-1172. Upon returning to Venice, Michiel was killed by an irate mob, but Dandolo escaped blame and was appointed as an ambassador to Constantinople in the following year, as Venice sought unsuccessfully to arrive at a diplomatic settlement of its disputes with Byzantium. Renewed negotiations begun twelve years later finally led to a treaty in 1186, but the earlier episodes seem to have created in Enrico Dandolo a deep and abiding hatred for the Byzantines.

During the following years Dandolo twice travelled as ambassador to King William II of Sicily, and then in 1183 returned to Constantinople to negotiate the restoration of the Venetian quarter in the city.