Contarini

The Contarini are one of Venice's twelve founding, or apostolic, families, whose name is first documented in the city in 853; by family tradition they claimed descent from the Roman Aurelii Cottae. Rich and prolific, they produced eight doges and forty-four Procurators of Saint Mark, and held more Great Council seats than any other house from before the Serrata of 1297 until the republic fell in 1797.

A Contarini captained galleys in Enrico Dandolo's crusading fleet that took Zara in 1202 and Constantinople in 1204. Andrea Contarini, doge from 1367, was hero of the War of Chioggia against Genoa: though in his seventies he commanded the fleet, liquidated his fortune to fund it, and led the recapture of Chioggia.

Later members served across the Venetian empire and beyond, among them Ambrogio Contarini, ambassador to the Persian ruler Uzun Hasan from 1473 to 1476. A branch of the house settled in Sicily in 1394 and survives there.