residence for most of the time at San Silvestro, Venice, while the bishop was based at San Pietro on the east of the city. An important role was played by the primicerio, based in Saint Mark's, who represented the doge and the city government. The primicerio invested the bishops, abbots and patriarchs. Patriarchate's history In 1451, upon the death of Domenico Michel, Patriarch of Grado, Pope Nicholas V suppressed the Patriarchate of Grado and the Diocese of Castello, incorporating them both in the new Patriarchate of Venice by the Papal Bull "Regis aeterni." Thus Venice succeeded to the whole metropolitan jurisdiction of Grado's ecclesiastical province, including the sees of Dalmatia. In 1466 the territory of the Patriarchate was expanded by merging the suppressed Diocese of Equilio. The election of the patriarch belonged to the Senate of Venice, and this practice sometimes led to differences between the republic and the Holy See. Likewise, parishioners elected their parish priests, by the right of patronage. Girolamo Quirini, O.P. (1519–54), had many disputes with the clergy, the Government, and the Holy See. To avoid these disputes, the Senate decreed that in future only senators should be eligible. Those elected after this were frequently laymen. Giovanni Trevisano, O.S.B. (1560), introduced the Tridentine reforms, founding the seminary, holding synods and collecting the regulations made by his predecessors (Constitutiones et privilegia patriarchatus et cleri Venetiarum). In 1581 the visita Apostolica was sent to Venice; a libellus exhortatorius was published, in which the visita highly praised the clergy of Venice. In 1751, Pope Benedict XIV abolished the Patriarchate of Aquileia by creating two new archbishops in Udine and Gorizia. With this act the Patriarchate of Venice became sole heir to the throne of St. Mark in northeastern Italy. After 1797 and the fall of the Republic of Venice under the rule of Napoleon, the bishopric rule of the doge on the Basilica and St. Mark's relics was lacking. Then in 1807, by favor of the Viceroy of Italy, the Neapolitan Nicola Gambroni was promoted to the Patriarchate and of his own authority transferred the patriarchal seat to the Basilica of St. Mark, uniting the two chapters. He also reduced the number of parish churches from seventy to thirty. The work of enlarging the choir of the basilica brought to light the relics of St. Mark in 1808. In 1811 Napoleon intruded into the See of Venice Stefano Bonsignore,