Enrico Dandolo’s sons distinguished themselves in the public service, and his grandson Giovanni was doge from 1280 to 1289. The latter’s son Andrea commanded the Venetian fleet in the war against Genoa in 1294, and, having been defeated and taken prisoner, he was so overwhelmed with shame that he committed suicide by beating his head against the mast (according to Andrea Navagero). Francesco Dandolo, also known as Dandolo Cane, was doge from 1329 to 1339. During his reign the Venetians went to war with Martino della Scala, lord of Verona, with the result that they occupied Treviso and otherwise extended their possessions on the terra firma. Andrea Dandolo (1307/10-1354), the last doge of the family, reigned from 1343 to 1354. He had been the first Venetian noble to take a degree at the university of Padua, where he had also been professor of jurisprudence. The terrible plague of 1348, wars with Genoa, against whom the great naval victory of Lojera was won in 1353, many treaties, and the subjugation of the seventh revolt of Zara, are the chief events of his reign. The poet Petrarch, who was the doge’s intimate friend, was sent to Venice on a peace mission by Giovanni Visconti, lord of Milan. “Just, incorruptible, full of zeal and of love for his country, and at the same time learned, of rare eloquence, wise, affable, and humane,” is the poet’s verdict on Andrea Dandolo (Varior. epist. xix.). Dandolo died on the 7th of September 1354. He is chiefly famous as a historian, and his Annals to the year 1280 are one of the chief sources of Venetian history for that period; they have been published by Muratori (Rer. Ital. Script. tom. xxi.). He also had a new code of laws compiled (issued in 1346) in addition to the statute of Jacopo Tiepolo.
Another well-known member of this family was Silvestro Dandolo (1796-1866), son of Girolamo Dandolo, who was the last admiral of the Venetian republic and died an Austrian admiral in 1847. Silvestro was an Italian patriot and took part in the revolution of 1848.
Bibliography.—S. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia (Venice, 1853); among more recent books H. Kretschmayr’s excellent Geschichte von Venedig (Gotha, 1905) should be consulted: it contains a bibliography of the authorities and all the latest researches and discoveries; C. Cipolla and G. Monticolo have published many essays and editions of chronicles in the Archivio Veneto, and the “Fonti per la Storia d’Italia,” in the Istituto storico italiano; H. Simonsfeld has written a life of Andrea Dandolo in German (Munich, 1876).
(L. V.*)
DANDOLO, VINCENZO, Count (1758-1819), Italian chemist and agriculturist, was born at Venice, of good family, though not of the same house as the famous doges, and began his career as a physician. He was a prominent opponent of the oligarchical party in the revolution which took place on the approach of Napoleon; and he was one of the envoys sent to seek the protection of the French. When the request was refused, and Venice was placed under Austria, he removed to Milan, where he was made member of the great council. In 1799, on the invasion of the Russians and the overthrow of the Cisalpine republic, Dandolo retired to Paris, where, in the same year, he published his treatise Les Hommes nouveaux, ou moyen d’opérer une régénération nouvelle. But he soon after returned to the neighbourhood of Milan, to devote himself to scientific agriculture. In 1805 Napoleon made him governor of Dalmatia, with the title of provéditeur général, in which position Dandolo distinguished himself by his efforts to remove the wretchedness and idleness of the people, and to improve the country by draining the pestilential marshes and introducing better methods of agriculture. When, in 1809, Dalmatia was re-annexed to the Illyrian provinces, Dandolo returned to Venice, having received as his reward from the French emperor the title of count and several other distinctions. He died in his native city on the 13th of December 1819.
Dandolo published in Italian several treatises on agriculture, vine-cultivation, and the rearing of cattle and sheep; a work on silk-worms, which was translated into French by Fontanelle; a work on the discoveries in chemistry which were made in the last quarter of the 18th century (published 1796); and translations of several of the best French works on chemistry.
DANDY, a word of uncertain origin which about 1813-1816 became a London colloquialism for the exquisite or fop of the period. It seems to have been in use on the Scottish border at the end of the 18th century, its full form, it is suggested, being “Jack-a-Dandy,” which from 1659 had a sense much like its later one. It is probably ultimately derived from the French dandin, “a ninny or booby,” but a more direct derivation was suggested at the time of the uprise of the Regency dandies. In The Northampton Mercury, under date of the 17th of April 1819, occurs the following: “Origin of the word ‘dandy.’ This term, which has been recently applied to a species of reptile very common in the metropolis, appears to have arisen from a small silver coin struck by King Henry VII., of little value, called a dandiprat; and hence Bishop Fleetwood observes the term is applied to worthless and contemptible persons.”
It was Beau Brummel, the high-priest of fashion, who gave dandyism its great vogue. But before his day foppery in dress had become something more than the personal eccentricity which it had been in the Stuart days and earlier. About the middle of the 18th century was founded the Macaroni Club. This was a band of young men of rank who had visited Italy and sought to introduce the southern elegances of manner and dress into England. The Macaronis gained their name from their introduction of the Italian dish to English tables, and were at their zenith about 1772, when their costume is described as “white silk breeches, very tight coat and vest with enormous white neckcloths, white silk stockings and diamond-buckled red-heeled shoes.” For some time the moving spirit of the club was Charles James Fox. It was with the advent of Brummel, however, that the cult of dandyism became a social force. Beau Brummel was supreme dictator in matters of dress, and the prince regent is said to have wept when he disapproved of the cut of the royal coat. Around the Beau collected a band of young men whose insolent and affected manners made them universally unpopular. Their chief glory was their clothes. They wore coats of blue or brown cloth with brass buttons, the coat-tails almost touching the heels. Their trousers were buckskin, so tight that it is said they “could only be taken off as an eel would be divested of his skin.” A pair of highly-polished Hessian boots, a waistcoat buttoned incredibly tight so as to produce a small waist, and opening at the breast to exhibit the frilled shirt and cravat, completed the costume of the true dandy. Upon the Beau’s disgrace and ruin, Lord Alvanley was regarded as leader of the dandies and “first gentleman in England.” Though in many ways a worthier man than Brummel, his vanity exposed him to much derision, and he fought a duel on Wimbledon Common with Morgan O’Connell, who, in the House of Commons, had called him a “bloated buffoon.” After 1825 “dandy” lost its invidious meaning, and came to be applied generally to those who were neat in dress rather than to those guilty of effeminacy.