ORSO II PARTICIPAZIO

'Orso Il Participazio' (?-932) was the Doge of Venice from 912 to 932.
He was the eighteenth doge of the Republic of Venice, by tradition (historically, he was the sixteenth). He was elected by the popular assembly. It seems that he was not related to the Participazio family that had already given many dogi to the city. (There was a prior Orso II Participazio who vied for Dogeship in about 887 CE but appears to have been entirely unrelated.) As soon as elected, he sent his son Pietro to Constantinople in order to re-establish the relationships with the emperor, which his predecessors had neglected; Pietro was named ''protospatario''. The Adriatic was still plagued with Dalmatian, Saracen, and Narentine pirates, but the Doge took no action. He was proclaimed Baduario in Costantinople; his family took this title and modified it, over time, to Badoer (pronounced “Badoèr”), which became a prominent name among successive generations of Veneziana nobility. Under his leadership, Venice acquired a mint. In 932 CE, he withdrew to the monastery of Saint Felice in Ammiana, where he led a monastic life until his death. He was buried there. His portrait is placed in the church of the Madonna of the Garden.