Pietro I Orseolo
Pietro I Orseolo (Peter Urseolus) (928-987) was the Doge of Venice from 976 to 978. He was born near Undine to one of the more powerful families in Venice. At the age of 20 he was named commander of the Venetian fleet, performing distinguished service as a soldier, and waging successful campaigns against the Dalmatian pirates. He also demonstrated a true devotion to the Church.
In 976, the sitting doge, Pietro IV Candiano, was killed in a revolution that protested his attempts to create a monarchy. According to a statement by St. Peter Damian, Orseolo himself had led a conspiracy against Candiano. This statement however cannot be verified. Peter was elected to take his place.
As doge, Peter demonstrated a good deal of talent in restoring order to unsettled Venice and showed remarkable generosity in the treatment of his predecessor's widow. He built hospitals and cared for widows, orphans and pilgrims. Out of his own resources he began the reconstruction of St. Mark's Cathedral and the doge's palace, which had been destroyed during the revolution, along with a great part of the city. Two years later, on September 1, 978, seemingly without notifying anyone, not even his wife and children, he left Venice with Abbot Guarin and three other Venetians (one of whom was St. Romuald) to join the Benedictine (now Cistercian) abbey at Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa in Prades, southern France.
Here he led a life of great asceticism, performing the most menial tasks. There is some evidence that he had been considering such an action for some time. His only contact with Venice was to instruct his son Otto (who had become doge in 1008) in the life of Christian virtue. After some years as a monk at the abbey, probably with the encouragement of Saint Romuald (who later went on to found the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictines) , Orseolo left the monastery to become a hermit in the surrounding forest, a calling he followed for seven years until he died. His body is buried in the Prades church.
Forty years after his death, he was officially recognized as a saint by the local bishop. He is still venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, having been canonized in 1731, and his feast day is January 10.
References
- Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.