Vendramin family

The Vendramin were a rich merchant family of Venice, Italy, who were among the case nuove or "new houses" who joined the patrician class when the Libro d'Oro was opened after the battle of Chioggia (June 1380). Andrea Vendramin served as the sole Vendramin Doge from 1476–78, at the height of Venetian power, though in 1477 an Antonio Feleto was imprisoned, then banished, for remarking in public that the Council of the Forty-One must have been hard-pressed to elect a cheesemonger Doge. In his youth, Andrea and his brother Luca, in joint ventures, used to ship from Alexandria enough goods to fill a galley or a galley and a half, Malipiero recorded in retrospect: even his factors grew rich managing his affairs. At this period, mentions of Vendramins in various fields of business occur; Luca Vendramin (d.1527) founded a successful bank on the still-wooden Rialto Bridge with three Capelli brothers in 1507, but in his will of 1524 forbade his sons from continuing in banking. An early text on accounting mentions that the Vendramins' soap is so reliably good that you can buy it without inspecting it. Later they owned an important theatre.

In the early seventeenth century the Vendramin also provided the Republic of Venice with an ambassador and Patriarch of Venice, in Francesco Vendramin (1555-October 7, 1619), elected Patriarch in 1605, despite being a layman, and made a Cardinal in 1615. He introduced a requirement that priests hearing confessions had to be over 35 years old, and take an examination in canon law, despite having himself evaded a Papal examination on the same subject for candidates to the Patriarchy. He bequeathed 600 ducats a year to the Jesuits, then banned from Venice, partly inspiring a law banning legacies to them.

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