page_title: Doge of Venice
section_title: Ritual role
hierarchical_section_title: Doge of Venice / Ritual role
caption_attribution_description: Bartolomeo Gradonico Gold Coin (ducato)
context_page_description: The Doge of Venice, sometimes translated as Duke, was the chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 and 1797.
  Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. The doge was neither a duke in the modern sense, nor the equivalent of a hereditary duke. The title "doge" was the title of the senior-most elected official of Venice and Genoa; both cities were republics and elected doges. A doge was referred to variously by the titles "My Lord the Doge", "Most Serene Prince", and "His Serenity".
context_section_description: One of the ceremonial duties of the doge was to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice with the sea. This was done by casting a ring from the state barge, the Bucentaur, into the Adriatic. In its earlier form this ceremony was instituted to commemorate the conquest of Dalmatia by Doge Pietro II Orseolo in 1000, and was celebrated on Ascension Day. It took its later and more magnificent form after the visit to Venice in 1177 of Pope Alexander III and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. On state occasions the Doge was surrounded by an increasing amount of ceremony, and in international relations he had the status of a sovereign prince.
  The doge took part in ducal processions, which started in the Piazza San Marco. The doge would appear in the center of the procession, preceded by civil servants ranked in ascending order of prestige and followed by noble magistrates ranked in descending order of status. Francesco Sansovino described such a procession in minute detail in 1581. His description is confirmed and complemented by Cesare Vecellio's 1586 painting of a ducal procession in the Piazza San Marco.
caption: Gold coin of Bartolomeo Gradenigo (1260–1342): the Doge kneeling before St. Mark.
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