Talk:Doge of Venice

According to John Julius Norwich in his History of Venice, the "first two" Doges of Venice are actually apocryphal, and Paolo was almost certainly in fact the Byzantine Exarch at Ravenna that was assassinated in 727 after 726 when Byzantine possessions in Italy including Venice revolted and chose their own Dux, leaders, (the "Dux" of Venice being Orso Ipato, and the title later changing "Doge" following Venetian dialect).

Furthermore according to Norwich, John the Deacon's fantasy that Paolo was the first Doge has to do with (and he got it from who?), wishful thinking that Venice was born in freedom (which is most certainly not the case, as "Ipato" comes from "Hypatos", meaning Consul, the title which the Byzantine emporer granted Orso.)

Shouldn't we be using the Venetian names without vowel endings, like Leonardo Loredan?

Naming

Why isn't this Doge of Venice singualar? As most page that are not merely lists use the singular. gren グレン 21:10, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Term of office

Did the Doges rule for life? Fishal 04:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Turns out that they did. Fishal 06:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"resignation of Doge Francesco Foscari in 1457"

Maybe not quite life after-all.

~ender 2008-04-10 12:33:PM MST

Able to leave the Palace complex?

I was under the impression that the Doge could leave the lagoon, if he was accompanied by two observers. Someone with more time could find it in John Norwich's "History of Venice", which is where I think I read it. Plasticbadge 13:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

It's patently obvious that the Doge could leave (e.g. Enrico Dandolo and Francesco Morosini); this seems to have been confusion from a limitation on his meeting with agents of foreign powers. Kirill Lokshin 15:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, the text in the article was:

He was by law forbidden to leave the city, confined for the rest of his life to the Doge's Palace complex and the connected Basilica di San Marco. (Compare with the podestà of other Italian republics who were confined by their term office).

I'll try to search through my copy of Norwich, but this seems to be, on the surface of it, utter nonsense. (Incidenally, members of the Council of Ten were confined to the palace for the duration of their terms, if I recall correctly.) Kirill Lokshin 15:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Did someone remove that text from the article? Because I don't see it anymore.

~ender 2008-04-10 12:26:PM MST

Kiril Loshkin, I'm at the beginning of Norwhich's coverage of the 12th century and have yet to see it, though it probably came later. Some of what has been removed is in the List of Doges of Venice article and really should be moved back here. IMHO (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Surveillance?

"the doge was constantly under strict surveillance" I was reading in some fiction that the Capi (and boy there's a lot of questions in that article) were constantly watching him, except for when he was in his bed-chamber, with his wife. Yet, he can conduct business? And/or open mail from non-foreign powers?
I'd like some more details.
~ender 2008-04-10 12:23:PM MST

Pronounciation

How does one correctly pronounce 'Doge'? As 'doggie', as 'doej', as 'dog', as 'doeg'? Svyatoslav 22:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The closest I can render it in English is DAW-jay, but the first vowel is somewhere between "aw" and "oh" (but closer to "aw"), and the final vowel is not a dipthong. In the Kirshenbaum system of ASCII-IPA it would be ['dO dZe]. Note that this is in modern standard Italian; what it sounded like in C18 Venetian I really have no idea. --Trovatore 21:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Pronounciation - doge is pronounced as follows; do as in dog and ge as in general. (Majors mt (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC)).