Saint Peter Orseolo

He was born in 928, says Johann Peter Kirsch in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, of the rich and noble Venetian family of the Orseoli. ¹ Kirsch gives his birthplace as Rivo Alto, which he places in the province of Udine; Fabio Arduino, writing for santiebeati.it, says Venice. ¹⁶ Kirsch says he "led from his youth an earnest Christian life" and distinguished himself in the service of the republic in naval battles against pirates. ¹ Arduino says he commanded the Venetian fleet against the Saracen corsairs who raided the coasts. ⁶

In 946 he married Felicitas, a Venetian noblewoman. ¹ Their son, who bore his father's name, was himself doge from 991 to 1009. ¹

On August 11, 976, the doge Pietro Candiano was killed in a conspiracy. ¹ To get at him, Kirsch says, the conspirators set fire to his palace, and the fire destroyed it along with the churches of San Marco, San Teodoro and Santa Maria Zobenigo and about three hundred houses. ¹ Umberto Benigni's article on Venice says Candiano died as he tried to escape. ⁵ The next day, in San Pietro di Castello, Pietro Orseolo was chosen doge. ¹ Kirsch says he accepted only out of regard for his duty to his country, and Butler's footnote, drawn from the Venetian chronicler Sanuto, says he refused the office "for a long time with great obstinacy." ¹³ Arduino says he was chosen as a neutral man, to keep the factions from a new war. ⁶

Whether he had any part in the murder is the question the sources answer differently. Leslie Toke, in the encyclopedia's article on Saint Romuald, says the doge "had obtained his office by acquiescence in the murder of his predecessor" and came to suffer remorse for it. ⁴ Kirsch says the tradition that he took part in the conspiracy, which goes back to Saint Peter Damian's life of Romuald, "is without foundation." ¹ Butler says he "is said by some to have been an accomplice: though this is denied by the best Venetian historians." ³

As doge he rebuilt the palace and the church of San Marco at his own expense, and had the first golden altar covering, the Pala d'oro, made for it in Constantinople. ¹ He left a thousand pounds to those the fire had hurt and as much again to the poor. ¹ Arduino says he also paid for a hospice out of his own pocket. ⁶ Kirsch says he renewed the treaty with Capodistria and kept off the vengeance of Candiano's family, among them his widow Waldrada, a niece of the empress Adelaide. ¹

Guarinus, the abbot of Cuxa, a Benedictine monastery at the foot of the Pyrenees, was in Venice. ¹³ Toke says that on his advice, and on that of the hermit Marinus and of Romuald, who had placed himself under Marinus, the doge "abandoned his office and relations, and fled to Cuxa." ⁴ Butler says he left under pretense of going to his family's villa, where he had ordered a great feast, and slipped away with Guarinus, Romuald, the nobleman John Gradenigo and John Morosini. ³ Arduino says he did it with the agreement of his wife and children. ⁶

Toke dates it about 978, and Butler's footnote says he had held office two years and eight months. ³⁴ Kirsch prints the date as the night of September 1-2, 987, which cannot be right, since he dates the death itself to January 10 of that year. ¹ Benigni gives a different account of the end of the reign: Candiano's partisans, supported by the emperor Otto II, "drove out (978) his successor, Pietro Orseolo I, who became a disciple of St. Romuald." ⁵

At Cuxa he took the habit of Saint Benedict, and Romuald and Marinus built a hermitage close to the monastery. ⁴ Kirsch says that as a monk he "presented to his spiritual brothers a model of humility, zeal for prayer, and charity," and that for a period he was under Romuald's guidance. ¹ Butler says he left the monastery for Romuald's hermitage and lived there under his direction, and that Romuald, severe with himself, was gentler with others and "in particular to Urseoli." ³

The Martyrology says that, made a monk after being doge, he shone for piety and austerity and spent his life in a hermitage near the monastery. ² Arduino says his cell was so narrow that he could neither stand up nor lie down in it, and that he was given a spirit of prophecy. ⁶ He died at Cuxa on January 10, 987. ¹⁶ Kirsch notes that 997 has been proposed and is less likely. ¹

Kirsch says the bishop of Elne approved his veneration as a saint as early as the eleventh century, and that in 1731 Clement XII ratified the cult. ¹ Butler says that, "persevering in his penitential state," he "made a most holy end," and that he was honored in Venice as a saint, with an office. ³

None of the sources consulted for this page names a patronage for Saint Peter Orseolo, and none is given here. ¹³⁶

Saint Peter Orseolo's feast is January 10, the day he died. ¹² The current Roman Martyrology lists him on that day, and Butler says the Martyrology published by Benedict XIV already did. ²³ Kirsch says that Clement XII, in 1731, appointed January 14 as his feast, and Butler that Venice kept his office on January 14. ¹³ Arduino adds that the Camaldolese Menology keeps a memory of him on January 19. ⁶

He came to power the day after a murder, and the sources still disagree about whether his hands were clean. ¹³⁴ Toke tells it as remorse, Kirsch as a tradition without foundation, Butler as an open question. The page leaves it where they do.

Whatever moved him, he used the two years. He rebuilt what the fire had taken and gave money to the people it had ruined, and then he gave the rest up. ¹

He left by night, with a feast laid at the villa as cover, and spent the rest of his life in a cell too small to stand in. ³⁶ Butler and Toke make him a penitent; Kirsch makes him a man who chose the cloister freely. ¹³⁴ Either way, it was the same choice.

The Martyrology's summary, in translation, is short: from doge, a monk, who shone for piety and austerity. ²