Contarini, Jacopo

Throughout his life, Contarini performed diplomatic missions, was the ambassador of the Republic of Venice in Constantinople and in the Vatican . He also served as prosecutor of San Marco .

Jacopo Contarini was married to a noblewoman from the Jacobini clan and had four sons from her.

Little is known about the process of his election to the doge post. Already at an advanced age, he had a successful career behind him and, most likely, was elected as a result of an agreement between the warring parties that were unable to agree on the candidate. Curiously, all the Doges from the Contarini family were elected under the same circumstances.

Contarini was elected Doge on September 6, 1275, at a respectable age.

Contarini spent these few years in weakness, being already too old to properly lead the Republic in the troubled years for her.

In history, the doge’s confrontation with Pope Nicholas III . The conflict concerned territorial claims on Ancona . Disputes reached the threat of the pope to excommunicate the doge from the church, but the doge did not want to start a new war. Having exhausted his strength in the confrontation, on March 6, 1280, Contarini resigned for health reasons. He retired to a monastery on one of the islands of the Venetian lagoon and died a month later on April 6 .

He was buried in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari , however, the tombstone was destroyed at the end of the 18th century .

• Cracco, Giorgio . Iacopo Contarini in Dizionario Biografico .