Faliero

Faliero, MARINO, Venetian general and doge, was born about the year 1274. At the siege of Zara, in 1346, he defeated an army of 80,000 Hungarians, and afterwards, whilst in command of the fleet, captured Capo d'Istria. Subsequently he became ambassador of the republic to Rome and Genoa. He was elected Doge of Venice in 1354. In the following year, being dissatisfied with the punishment inflicted by a patrician tribunal upon a young noble, Michele Steno, who had publicly insulted the youthful wife of the aged doge, Faliero conspired with the plebeians to assassinate the oligarchy and make himself supreme ruler of Venice. The conspiracy was, however, revealed on the eve of its execution, and Faliero was arrested and beheaded on the 17th of April 1355. His fate forms the theme of tragedies by Byron and Swinburne.