Podestà of Constantinople

[2] How that colony was governed is unknown; most likely it elected its own local elders, but occasionally consuls sent from Venice, or passing captains of the Venetian fleet, may have assumed some political responsibility.

Until his death on 29 May 1205, in the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Adrianople, he remained the ruler of the local Venetians, and one of the most important statesmen of the Latin Empire.

[15] At about the same time, Ziani issued a decree allowing any Venetian or allied citizen to privately occupy and govern any formerly Byzantine territory, with the right to pass this possession on to his descendants.

[19] However, the Venetian position was ambiguous: as Filip Van Tricht explains, Venice was "at one and the same time an independent state and a feudal partner in the empire".

[22] This development was aided on the one hand by the stabilization of the Empire's military situation after its catastrophic early years, and by the relative weakness of the Podestà and his councillors, given their brief and circumscribed tenures, vis-a-vis the Emperor and his barons.

[23] In 1261, when Constantinople was retaken by the Byzantines under Michael VIII Palaiologos, the office of Podestà ceased to exist and the Venetians were expelled from the city.