13 Facts About Jacopo Tiepolo

Jacopo Tiepolo, known as Giacomo Tiepolo, was Doge of Venice from 1229 to 1249.

Jacopo Tiepolo had previously served as the first Venetian Duke of Crete, and two terms as Podesta of Constantinople, twice as governor of Treviso, and three times as ambassador to the Holy See.

Jacopo Tiepolo's dogate was marked by major domestic reforms, including the codification of civil law and the establishment of the Venetian Senate, but against a mounting conflict with Emperor Frederick II, which broke into open war from 1237 to 1245.

Jacopo Tiepolo was the son of Pietro Tiepolo of the San Ermagora parish in Venice.

Jacopo Tiepolo's family was engaged in trade, and Tiepolo himself is first attested in 1190, as a merchant trading with the Byzantine capital, Constantinople In 1196, he is even recorded as participating in a merchant fleet to Constantinople which failed due to a mutiny of its crews at Abydos, at the entrance of the Dardanelles.

Jacopo Tiepolo's job was to establish the Venetian administration over the island of Crete, which had been purchased by the Republic from Boniface of Montferrat.

Jacopo Tiepolo supervised the establishment of a Venetian colony, himself setting up the settlement of the island by military colonists from the metropolis.

In spring 1227, Jacopo Tiepolo was again sent as envoy to Rome, and was again podesta of Treviso later in the same year.

Jacopo Tiepolo greatly expanded the ruling class of the Republic, extending the voting right to the merchant class, from which he himself had come.

Additional to this, Jacopo Tiepolo had granted land in 1234 to the Dominican and Franciscan orders, upon which two churches were built.

In foreign affairs, Jacopo Tiepolo continued his predecessor's policy of safeguarding the overseas possessions secured after the Fourth Crusade, the defence of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, a division of spheres of influences with Venice's rivals, Genoa and Pisa, and a dense web of diplomatic and commercial treaties with both Italian and Mediterranean states.

Venetian agents tried to oppose Frederick's policies in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and in 1242, Jacopo Tiepolo reconquered the rebellious city of Pula in Istria.

Jacopo Tiepolo married twice, firstly to Maria Storlato, and secondly to Valdrada of Sicily.