Enrico Dandolo
The blind nonagenarian who turned a crusade into the sack of the largest Christian city in the world. Enrico Dandolo was elected Doge of Venice in 1192, already about eighty-five and blind, and governed until his death thirteen years later. The blindness was old and its cause disputed; a Byzantine source claims he was blinded in Constantinople years before, which would give his later conduct a motive that historians treat with caution. In 1201 Venice contracted to build and crew a fleet for the Fourth Crusade, sized for an army far larger than the one that actually turned up. The crusaders could not pay. Dandolo offered terms: work off the debt by helping Venice retake Zara, a Christian city on the Adriatic that had defected to Hungary. They sacked it in 1202 and were excommunicated for it. From Zara the expedition was diverted again, to Constantinople, on behalf of a claimant to the Byzantine throne who promised money and union of the churches and could deliver neither. In April 1204 the crusaders stormed the city and looted it for three days. Whether Dandolo planned the diversion from the start or took each opportunity as it came is the oldest argument in crusade historiography, and the sources are partisan on both sides. Venice took three-eighths of the empire, the ports and islands that made it a maritime power for three centuries, and the four bronze horses that stood over the door of San Marco until they were moved indoors. He refused the imperial crown and had a Frankish count take it instead, which left Venice the trade and none of the governing. He died in 1205 and was buried inside Hagia Sophia. His tomb slab is still in the gallery, the only doge buried in the city he broke.
- Lived: 1107 CE – 1205 CE
- Nationality: Venetian
- Roles: ruler, statesman
