Marco Sanudo

Marco Sanudo , first Duke of Naxos (1153 - 1220).

Biography

Nephew of the Venetian Doge , Enrico Dandolo, it took part in the Fourth crusade. He founded the Duché of Naxos and various other Latin feudal States given to the other Venetian big families.

In 1205, it joins together a fleet and seized the Cyclades. It started by seizing Naxos. To increase the determination of its troops, it would have made burn its vessels after the unloading. It then obtained from Venice the authorization raising a more important troop. For Venice, it was a question of fighting against the influence gênoise in the Eastern Mediterranean. Marco Sanudo conquered the others îles.
It attacked then the emperor of Nicée, Theodore Lascaris. Sanudo seized Smyrna, but it was overcome and made captive. It would have rained so much with the emperor that this one gave him his/her daughter in marriage (1207).

In 1210, it made homage to the Latin Empereur Henri de Hainaut and supported it in all its wars. In exchange, this last granted effective suzerainty to him on all the Archipelago (i.e. the Aegean Sea). It took then the title of Duc of the Archipelago ( Αιγαιον πελαγος ) and Seigneur of the Dodécanèse .

It made strengthen Naxos and improved the port. It authorized the Greeks to be continued to practice their religion. That made it popular.

The Crétois being revolted against the Venetian domination, the duke Giacomo Tiepolo called Sanudo with the assistance in 1212. The revolt was initially repressed, but Sanudo and Tiepolo were scrambled and Sanudo took the head of the insurgent Greeks. It seized Candie, but could not force Tiepolo in its fortress of Téménos. It ends up evacuating Crete against ransom.

His/her only son Angelo Sanudo succeeded to him.

Bibliography and bonds

Father Robert Sauger, new History of the Dukes of the Archipelago. , Paris, 1699. (begun again by Louis Lacroix, Islands of Greece , 1853 and Ernst Curtius)
J.K. Fotheringham and L.R.F Williams, Marco Sanudo, conqueror off the Archipelago. , Clarendon Near, Oxford, 1915.

Biography on Gallica
Naxos by Ernst Curtius

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