Giovanni Dandolo

Giovanni Dandolo (c. 1240–1289), son of the admiral Giberto Dandolo, was elected the forty-eighth doge of Venice on 31 March 1280 while campaigning against Istria and Trieste. He had previously been podestà of Bologna and Padua and commanded Venetian naval forces.

His reign saw wars against Aquileia, the papal states and Ancona, and a Cretan revolt backed by Emperor Michael VIII. When Venice refused a papal attack on Sicily, Martin IV excommunicated the Republic, until Honorius IV lifted the sentence in 1285. In 1284 Dandolo issued Venice's first gold ducat. He died in 1289 and was buried at San Zanipolo.