One of his first public roles was when Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos, intending to reclaim Italy as a possession, befriended the Pisa's and Genoese living on Constantinople. Pisa and Genoa were currently enemies of Venice, and the Venetians in Constantinople attacked the Genoese. Manuel responded by having thousands of Venetians in the Empire imprisoned and their goods confiscated. Enrico was part of the retaliatory expedition that failed due to plague. (The enmity between Venice and Constantine would come into play during the Fourth Crusade.)
As Doge, he was involved in the negotiations to have ships ready to ferry the Fourth Crusade from Europe to the Holy Land, as I mentioned yesterday. When only part of the army showed up without all the men and financial resources that hd been arranged, Venice was in a bind: how to recoup the expense of the ship-building they had incurred. based on the promise of payment? The solution was also the solution to another issue: where to house an influx of thousands of people and their equipment.
The temporary housing was resolved by ferrying them all to the island of Lido, a long thin barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon. (The Venice Film Festival takes place there annually in late summer.) Once there, the Crusaders were stuck with no way to leave. Dandolo demanded 85,000 marks in payment. The Crusaders pooled what they had, and came up with 51,000 marks.
Dandolo made an additional offer. Venice would lend the remaining 34,000 marks to the Crusade, so long as it could be paid back by the spoils of the venture. At this point it was late summer, and Enrico had two further suggestions/offers. One was to spend the winter at Zara, cross the Adriatic, and resume the Crusade to the Holy land in the spring weather. This was agreed to, since they relied on the ships and good will of Venice to get to their destination anyway.
The second offer was that Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, aged as he was, would take up the Cross and join them, bring the support of the people of Venice. The offer was made and accepted in a grand ceremony, and in the early days of October 1202, the Crusade departed Venice for the city of Zara to spend the harsher winter months.
The problem on the horizon? Zara was not controlled by Venice. It was a Croatia-Hungary city. Dandolo wanted it subjugated so Venice would have total control over the northern Adriatic, and now he had an army of thousands whom he could coerce to do his bidding. This will turn into the second (but not the last) disaster of the Fourth Crusade. See you tomorrow.
