page_title: Contarini
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: Contarini / Family
context_page_description: Contarini is one of the founding families of Venice and one of the oldest families of the Italian Nobility. In total eight Doges to the Republic of Venice emerged from this family, as well as 44 Procurators of San Marco, numerous ambassadors, diplomats and other notables. Among the ruling families of the republic, they held the most seats in the Great Council of Venice from the period before the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio when Councillors were elected annually to the end of the republic in 1797. The Contarini claimed to be of Roman origin through their patrilineal descendance of the Aurelii Cottae, a branch of the Roman family Aurelia, and traditionally trace their lineage back to Gaius Aurelius Cotta, consul of the Roman Republic in 252 BC and 248 BC.
context_section_description: The House of Contarini is one of the twelve founding families of the Venetian Republic, the apostolic families, and were and remain through extended family consanguinity present in the Veneto's population, represented in over twenty auxiliary and cadet noble branchesthat include ranks currently among European sovereign, royal and aristocratic descendants. In the male line the family went extinct in Venice, but a branch remains in Sicily today. With the arrival of Alvise Contarini in Syracuse at the invitation of Martin I of Sicily this branch of the family was established in Sicily in 1394, the year in which Alvise married Cesarea Modica of Baron Pietro di Modica. Alvise Contarini was given the fiefdoms of San Giacomo Belmineo and Solarino as part of the dowry. In 1406 he was elected mayor of Syracuse, followed by numerous other communal, ministerial and military official positions for his descendants in the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Italy after the Risorgimento. In Sicily the family carries the title Duke of Castrofilippo.
  853 AD marks the first officially verified documentation of the Contarini in the Republic of Venice, with Andrea Contarini named in the testament of Orso Partecipazio, son of Giovanni I Participazio. According to manuscripts in the Biblioteca Marciana and the family archives the Contarini claim direct descent of the Roman gens Aurelii Cottae through Publius Aurelius Cotta, son of Marcus Aurelius Cotta (consul in 74 BC and maternal uncle of Julius Caesar), who transferred his family to Padua. His grandson, Lucius Aurelius Cotta was elected prefect of the Reno; the area around the Reno near Bologna. His first and second son and his male grandchildren continued in this position and added the cognomen Reno, becoming Cotta Reno or Cottareno. The last person to register Cottareno was Marcus Aurelius Cottareno in Padua in 290 AD and subsequently the family name was written as Contareno, or Contarini in Venetian (both the Latin and Venetian denomination of the family name have been used interchangeably since).
  In 338 AD Marcus Aurelius Contareno (or Marco Aurelio Contarini in Venetian), prefect of Concordia under Constantine I, was the first Contarini to permanently move his residence to the Venetian area. In 425 another Marcus Aurelius Contarini took part in the third Consular Triumvirate of Rialto, following the invasions of the Goths under Alaric I, who from 402 pillaged the rich provinces of Istria and Venetia and sacked Rome in 410. From the outset the affairs of the early exiles in the islands of the Venetian lagoon were managed by Roman Consuls elected at Padua, including the Contarini. Following the invasion by the Huns of Attila in 452 and the destruction of the large Roman cities of Padua and Aquileia, the islands became a more permanent refuge for the swelling number of exiles.  In 466 the exiles decided upon a form of self-government through the annual election of Tribunes, who ultimately in 539 came under Byzantine rule through the Exarch of Ravenna, forming a loose association of islands with its capital in Eraclea. According to tradition, in 697 under the guidance of the Patriarch of Grado, twelve Tribunes ruling the Byzantine district of Venice elected the first Doge in Eraclea, forming the independent Republic of Venice. One of these Tribunes was Marcus Aurelius Contarini. Twentieth century studies, however, cast doubt on the historicity of the first Doge Paolo Luccio Anafesto and his successor Doge Marcello Tegalliano, suggesting that only following the murder of the Byzantine viceroy Paul Exarch of Ravenna, did the inhabitants of the islands chose their first Doge, Orso Ipato from Eraclea. Whoever was historically the first, the Contarini family has since the earliest Venetian chronicles been associated with the birth of the Republic and election of the first Doge. They formed part of the 'duodecim nobiliorum proles Venetiarum' (or the 'twelve noblest families of Venice') and the 12 apostolic families, the oldest of the 247 patrician families in the Great Council following the Se
caption: Girolamo Contarini by Paolo Veronese (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
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