380 cecilia cristellon and silvana seidel menchi
situation grew only more complex following the Republic’s conquest of the
terraferma. indeed, the city was home not only to the bishop of Castello—
ordinary head of the diocese—but also to the Patriarch of grado, whose
jurisdiction encompassed the Venetian parishes of san silvestro (where
his residence was located), san Matteo di Rialto, san giacomo dell’orio,
san Bartolomeo, san Canciano, and san Martino. Moreover, there was a
palatine church with its own clergy (and, from 1581, its own seminary)
led by the primicerio of the basilica of st Mark’s, the head canon who
was responsible not to the head of any metropolitan church but to the
doge himself. The primicerio exercised his own jurisdiction in the parishes
of san giovanni elemosinario, san giacomo di Rialto, san filippo e gia-
como, and santa Maria delle Vergini.
The competition among religious authorities grew further with the
annexation of the friuli region into Venetian domains and the resulting
fall of the patriarchal state of Aquileia in 1420: now, in addition to the
suffragan bishop and primicerio, in fact, there resided in Venice two met-
ropolitans: no longer only the Patriarch of grado, who after 1440 would
extend his jurisdiction to the territories of the suppressed diocese of era-
clea, but also the Patriarch of Aquileia as well, whose authority extended
to territories well beyond the confines of the Serenissima.1
- Patriarchate and Patriarch
in the 15th century the Venetian Church went through a process of ratio-
nalization and achieved a greater centralization thanks to its change from
episcopate to patriarchate. With the suppression of the patriarchate of
grado in 1451, the patriarchate of Venice was founded, and this, under
the prestigious leadership of lorenzo giustiniani,2 united the jurisdiction
of the ex-metropolitan of grado with that of the parishes of the old civic
1 on Venetian ecclesiastical institutions see Daniela Rando, Una chiesa di frontiera. Le
istituzioni ecclesiastiche veneziane nei secoli VI–XII (Bologna, 1994). on the ducal church,
see Bianca Betto, Il capitolo della basilica di S. Marco in Venezia: statuti e consuetudini dei
primi decenni del sec. XIV (Padua, 1984).
2 on the passage from the episcopate of Castello to the patriarchate of Venice, see
silvio Tramontin, “Dall’episcopato castellano al patriarcato veneziano,” in giovanni Vian,
ed., La Chiesa di Venezia tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Venice, 1989), pp. 55–85; Antonio
Niero, Dal patriarcato di Grado al patriarcato di Venezia, in Grado nella storia e nell’arte
(Antichità altoadriatiche, XVII) (udine, 1980), pp. 265–84. on the patriarchate, see Paolo
Prodi, “The structure and organisation of the Church in Renaissance Venice: suggestion
for Research,” in John Rigby Hale, ed., Renaissance Venice (london, 1973), pp. 409–30. on
lorenzo giustiniani, see infra, section ii, and the included bibliography.