A Doge who attempted a coup d'état to transform the Republic of Venice into a dynastic rule. Although the legend suggests that the plot was a reaction to the rumours spread by some aristocrats on the sexual habits of the Doge’s wife (“La mogie del doxe Falier se fa foter par so piaser”), the coup was consistent with the dominating trend in Italy politics, where weak Republican municipalities were being replaced by seignories. The Doge plotted to pass his title to his nephew Fantino with a plan as simple as bloody, implying the occupation of the Palazzo Ducale, the murder of all the members of the various Councils, and to conclude the extermination of all the other aristocratic families in Venice house by house. At the end, the Doge would have proclaimed himself Lord of Venice. The plan failed simply because one of the conspirators discussed it with someone who then reported him. In the end the Doge was beheaded, his body mutilated, and his portrait in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio was painted over with a black shroud still on display nowadays.
Copyright © Alastair Fontana 2013
Giovanni Bellini, Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, 1501
