Otto Orseolo

Otto Orseolo (Italian: Ottone Orseolo, also Urseolo; c. 992-1032) was the Doge of Venice from 1008 to 1026. He was the third son of Pietro II Orseolo and Maria Candiano, whom he succeeded at the age of sixteen, becoming the youngest doge in Venetian history.

When the Emperor Otto III sojourned in Verona and granted many privileges to Venice in the March of Verona, he requested Pietro to send his third son to Verona, where the Emperor acted as his sponsor at his confirmation. In the Emperor's honour, he was given the name Otto. In 1004, Pietro Otto, in the company of his eldest son and co-doge Giovanni, traveled to Constantinople, where Giovanni married the niece of Basil II, Maria Argyra, and Otto received several .

After Giovanni's sudden death (1006), Pietro raised Otto to the dogeship with him. He then made a testament, giving the majority of his wealth to the poor and the Church, and retired to a monastery, leaving Otto the government. When Pietro finally died in 1008, he left Otto sole doge at the meager age of sixteen. Soon after the death of his father, in 1009, Otto married a daughter of the newly Christian and newly crowned Géza of Hungary and Adelaide. She was called Grimelda or Gizella (989-992 - d. 1026). Because the Chronicon Venetum of John the Deacon ends in Otto's reign, it is necessary to rely on later chronicles. According to the chronicler (and doge) Andrea Dandolo, writing from a vantage point three centuries ahead, Otto was:

Catholic in faith, calm in purity, strong in justice, eminent in religion, decorous in his manner of life, well-endowed with wealth and possessions, and so filled with all forms of virtue that he was universally considered to be the most fitting successor of his father and grandfather.

...
Wikipedia