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Birth:          ABT  992 
Death:          1032 

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.[1]
Early life[edit]

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.[2] 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 honorific titles.[3]

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.[4] 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).[5] Because the Chronicon Venetum of John the Deacon ends in Otto's reign, it 
is necessary to rely on later chronicles.[4] 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.[4]

Reign and deposition (1008–26)[edit]

Scandal marked much of Otto's reign, as he showed a clear inclination toward 
nepotism with the elevation of several relatives to positions of power. In 1017, Vitale 
Candiano, the Patriarch of Grado, died and Otto appointed his elder brother (Pietro's 
second son), Orso, already Bishop of Torcello, to the vacant patriarchate.[6] Otto then 
filled the vacant Torcello with his younger brother Vitale. These actions lost him the 
support of the people, though they did not yet clamour for his removal from office. The 
denunciations of Poppo of Treffen, the Patriarch of Aquileia, incited the Venetians to 
expel Otto and the patriarch of Grado from Venice, whence they took refuge in Istria 
from 1022 to 1023. But in that latter year, Poppo sacked the patriarchal palace and 
church in Grado and the Venetians recalled Otto and Orso.[6]

In 1024, Pope John XIX confirmed Orso's right to hold Grado and confirmed the 
patriarchal rights of his see vis-à-vis Aquileia. However, Otto continued to use church 
appointments to his own personal and familial advantage and the enemies of the 
Orseoli in Venice, with popular support, moved to depose him in 1026. They arrested 
him, shaved his beard, and banished him to Constantinople.[7] There he was well 
received by Constantine VIII, the uncle of his sister-in-law, who repealed trade 
privileges previously granted to the Republic under Pietro II. Not for nothing had Otto 
built up a good rapport with the emperors of Europe: the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad 
II likewise revoked Venetian trade privileges in response to his deposition. His father-
in-law Stephen I of Croatia, at the instigation of Otto's son Pietro, attacked the 
coastal cities of Dalmatia, capturing several from Venice.[7]

Death in exile (1032)[edit]

Meanwhile, the Venetians had grown sick of Otto's successor, Pietro Barbolano, and 
they deposed him in turn (1032). Vitale of Torcello went to Constantinople to seek out 
his brother to reassume the ducal throne, while Orso of Grado took the government in 
his own hands in the interim.[7] Vitale arrived in the Byzantine capital to find Otto on 
the verge of death and he died before he could return to Venice. Orso resigned the 
temporal power as soon as news reached Venice, while a relative, Domenico,[8] tried 
to usurp the throne. He failed and the Venetians turned to one Domenico Flabanico to 
be their doge.

Otto's son Pietro later succeeded Stephen as King of Hungary. Otto had two 
daughters, Frozza Orseolo and Felicia Orseolo, who married Nicolo Bembo. Their 
daughter Elena Bembo married Zuane Michiel, son of Vitale Michiel and Felicia Elena 
Cornaro, and their son was Domenico Michiel.

Parents
ORSEOLO Pietro II (ABT  950 - 1009)
CANDIANO Maria (ABT  955 - )

Siblings
ORSEOLO Otto (ABT  992 - 1032)

Marriage To ----- ----- ()
    m.  

Notes


Children by ----- ----- 
____ Adelaide [chg from Frozza Orseola] (1015 - 17 Feb 1071)

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