Giordano Forzatè

[1] For his noble background, peacemaking efforts, and monastic reforms, the Chronicle of the Trevisan March calls him the pater Padue, "father of Padua".

His family, the Forzatè branch of the Tanselgardi (or Transelgardi),[3] belonged to the upper ranks of the aristocracy of the Trevisan March, part of the Kingdom of Italy in the Holy Roman Empire.

On 7 June 1211, Pope Innocent III nominated him to the bishopric of Ferrara, but he declined, preferring to play a larger role in his native Padua and in the Benedictine Order.

He founded a new movement, called the Albi (whites) or more fully ordo monachorum alborum Sancti Benedicti de Padua (order of white monks of Saint Benedict of Padua), which aimed to combine hospitals with communities of canons, male and female monastics and hermits.

In 1227, he performed a visitation of Benedictine houses exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, of congregations of canons regular and Humiliati and of the hospitals of Padua, Venice and Treviso.

[2] The hostile pro-imperial Ghibelline chronicler Gerardo Maurisio of Vicenza calls him evil, hypocritical, conspiratorial and "the author and prince of all discord in the March" of Treviso (totius discordie Marchie auctor et princeps).

He was present when Padua conceded the right of toll-free transit of goods to the Venetian monastery of Santa Maria delle Vergini on 19 September 1229.

In that year, he also strove to prevent open warfare between Padua and Treviso after the latter had, at the instigation of Ezzelino III da Romano, occupied the towns of Feltre and Belluno.

At first, fearing reprisals, Giordano took refuge in his family's castle at Montemerlo, but he later returned to the city, where he was arrested in June.

Giordano's later reputation as the "father of Padua" owes much to his showdown with Ezzelino, who became the archetypal tyrant in Paduan historical memory.

He later decided to leave the Empire entirely and took refuge in the monastery of Santa Maria della Celestia in the Republic of Venice.