Marco I Sanudo - Sources

Sources

All biographies of Marco Sanudo have been written centuries after the facts they tell. Most of them are Venetian chronicles dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. In the first one, Istoria di Romania, Marino Sanudo Torsello, a member of the Sanudo family only writes about Marco Sanudo:

he conquered the islands.

Doge Andrea Dandolo wrote a history of Venice (called Chronica extensa) around 1350. This text is the first relating the conquest of Ægean islands, and has been the foundation of all posterior accounts:

Sailing separately, Marco Sanudo and those following him conquered the islands of Naxos, Paros, Milos and Santorini, and Marino Dandolo conquered Andros. Also, Andrea and Geremia Ghisi Tinos, Mykonos, Skyros, Skopelos and Skiathos.

A chronicle in Venetian dated of 1360-1362 and attributed to an Enrico Dandolo gives a short biography of Marco Sanudo starting with his struggle in Crete against Enrico Pescatore. But the text is not reliable, most of it is either invented or contradicted by official documents. Also, it's the first text stating that Marco Sanudo and Doge Enrico Dandolo are related. In 1454, Flavio Biondo published his De Origine et gestis Venetorum in which he copies Andrea Dandolo's account and introduces the idea of the Venetian Republic giving to its citizens official right to conquer lands in the Orient, as long as they would never be transmitted to a non-Venetian. This rule, asserted in the 15th century is thus extended to the start of the 13th century by Biondo.

The most commonly used chronicle, because it gives a lot of geographical and chronological details, is the one written by Daniele Barbaro in the 16th century. He combined different other older chronicles to create a coherent story based on both Dandolo's accounts. His version is the one used by all posterior writers and historians, as J. K. Fotheringham in 1915. Guillaume Saint-Guillain, in a 2004 article, suggests another interpretation, based on his recent works on official documents.

The Histoire nouvelle des anciens Ducs de l'Archipel, another widely used account was written in the second half of the 17th century by a French Jesuit from Naxos monastery, Father Saulger.