Domenico Michiel (died ) was the 35th Doge of Venice from 1116 or 1117 to his resignation in late 1129 or early 1130. In August 1122 Domenico Michiel led a Venetian fleet of 100 vessels and around 15,000 men for the campaign in the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

. The fleet sailed under the flag of St. Peter, which the Pope had sent to Michiel. Over the winter the fleet set siege to the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

island of

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

. The siege was cancelled in the spring when news arrived that King Baldwin II of Jerusalem had been captured by the

Artuqids The Artuqid dynasty (alternatively Artukid, Ortoqid, or Ortokid; Old Anatolian Turkish: , , plural, pl. ; ; ) was established in 1102 as a Turkish people, Turkish Anatolian beyliks, Anatolian Beylik (Principality) of the Seljuk Empire. It formed a ...

, and that the Kingdom of Jerusalem had subsequently been invaded by the

Fatimids The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. The Venetian fleet went to the defence of Jerusalem and defeated the Egyptian fleet off of the Syrian coast. The Venetians then landed at

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

; from there Michiel went to Jerusalem, where the '' Pactum Warmundi'' was signed granting Venice privileged trade concessions, tax freedoms, and even partial ownership of some cities within the Kingdom of Jerusalem. On the return journey to Venice, the fleet looted

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

, attacked the islands

Samos Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate reg ...

and

Lesbos Lesbos or Lesvos ( ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of , with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, eighth largest ...

, and destroyed the city of Modon in the

Peloponnese The Peloponnese ( ), Peloponnesus ( ; , ) or Morea (; ) is a peninsula and geographic region in Southern Greece, and the southernmost region of the Balkans. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridg ...

. Domenico Michiel triumphantly returned to Venice in June 1125. He had helped the Christians in the Holy Land and weakened the hostile Greeks. The inscription on Michiel's tomb does not describe him as a religious crusader, but rather as a ''terror Graecorum...et laus Venetorum'' ("A horror to the Greeks...and praise from the Venetians"). His dogaressa was Alicia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Michiel, Domenico 12th-century Doges of Venice Christians of the Crusades 1130 deaths Domenico