Teodato Ipato (also Diodato or Deusdedit; ) was

Doge of Venice The Doge of Venice ( ) – in Italian, was the doge or highest role of authority within the Republic of Venice (697–1797). The word derives from the Latin , meaning 'leader', and Venetian Italian dialect for 'duke', highest official of the ...

from 742 to 755. With his election came the restoration of the dogato, which had been defunct since the assassination of his father, Orso Ipato. Before his election he had served as ''

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers"; : ) was a top-level military command used in the late Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the e ...

'' in 739. Teodato was the son of Doge Orso Ipato. He was condemned to exile in 737 in the wake of his father's murder, which came perhaps as a complication of a civil conflict between Eraclea and Equilio. The office of doge was subsequently abolished in favour of a ''

'', denoting in this case a

chief magistrate A chief magistrate is a public official, executive or judicial, whose office is the highest in its class. Historically, the two different meanings of magistrate have often overlapped and refer to, as the case may be, to a major political and admi ...

to be replaced yearly. The first to be installed in this role was Domenico Leoni, who at the end of his twelve-month term was replaced by Felicius Cornicola. It was under Felicius' administration that Teodato was recalled from exile.Hazlitt, p. 45 After returning home, Teodato is said to have gained the favour of the Venetian electors, and in 739, he was thus selected as Felicius Cornicola's successor. At the end of his term he was himself replaced by Jovian Ceparius, having failed to procure re-election; and Jovian, at his term's end, was succeeded by Giovanni Fabriciaco, who took office in 741. Fabriciaco's appointment would prove disastrous: some months into his term an uprising took hold, and consequently he was ousted from office, blinded, and driven into exile. Most historians put this at around 742. Teodato, said to have been complicit in Fabriciaco's downfall, was later by popular vote appointed Doge, marking the end of the interregnum which had lasted from 737 to 42. Under Teodato, Venice's

seat of government The seat of government is (as defined by ''Brewer's Politics'') "the building, complex of buildings or the city from which a government exercises its authority". In most countries, the nation's Capital city, capital is also seat of its governmen ...

was moved from Eraclea to Malamocco. Also during his reign came the renewal of an age-old treaty with the

Lombards The Lombards () or Longobards () were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written betwee ...

, first composed in the reign of Paolo Lucio Anafesto, and an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

which is said to have flooded parts of Venice. His reign came to an end in 755 when he was deposed and blinded at the instigation of Galla Gaulo, who was subsequently elected Doge. An alternative view of Teodato's fate, as described in Hazlitt's ''History of the Venetian Republic'', is that rather than being blinded and deposed, he was instead murdered by adherents of Galla Gaulo.Hazlitt, p. 48

Notes

Sources

* Norwich, John Julius. ''A History of Venice''. Penguin, 2012. * Hazlitt, William Carew. ''History of the Venetian Republic: Her Rise, Her Greatness, and Her Civilization''. Elder, Smith and Co.:

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, 1860. *Hodgson, Francis Cotterell. ''The early history of Venice, from the foundation to the conquest of Constantinople, A.D. 1204''. George Allen:

, 1901. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ipato, Teodato 8th-century Doges of Venice Magistri militum 755 deaths