As Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, kneeled down before the pope and lowered his head to kiss his holiness’s shoe, Pope Alexander III suddenly raised his foot and placed it on the Emperor’s neck. Frederick, however, was quick to respond in an effort to salvage his dignity: “Not to you, but to Peter I kneel”, and the Pope, just as quick, sneering down replied “To Peter and to me”. He then helped Frederick up to his feet and gave him the kiss of peace. What the pope was actually doing, however, was demonstrating how much more powerful the Papacy was than his Empire. Doge Sebastiano Ziani was the person who organised and oversaw this rather tense ceremony, since it took place in Venice in 1177. And no coincidence either, because Venice had achieved special status in the eyes of the Church, to the extent that, on the same occasion, the Pope donated a special ring to Ziani, as a way of recognising Venice’s independence and power from that in Rome. A truly enviable feat for any other leader in the West at the time.
Since that day, once a year, on Ascension day, the doge would be taken out onto the Bucintoro, the Venetian Dogal ship, and drop the ring into the water, renewing the marriage with the sea. After all, it was thanks to the sea that Venice had gained and maintained its enormous power, whether their ships crossed it for commerce or for war. And it was in this hall, the Sala della Milizia del Mar, that 20 experienced men would meet to recruit the crew for every ship going into battle.
