Ermolao Barbaro
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
scholar.
Education
Ermolao Barbaro was born in VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, the son of Zaccaria Barbaro, and the grandson of Francesco Barbaro
Francesco Barbaro
Francesco Barbaro was an Italian politician, diplomat, and humanist from Venice, a member of the patrician Barbaro family. He is interred in the Church of the Frari, Venice.- Family :...
. He was also the uncle of Daniele Barbaro
Daniele Barbaro
Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro was an Italian translator of, and commentator on, Vitruvius. He also had a significant ecclesiastical career, reaching the rank of Cardinal....
and Marcantonio Barbaro
Marcantonio Barbaro
Marcantonio Barbaro was an Italian diplomat of the Republic of Venice.-Family:He was born in Venice into the aristocratic Barbaro family...
Much of his early education was outside of Venice, accompanying his father who was an active politician and diplomat. He received further education in Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
with an uncle, also named Ermolao. In 1462 he was sent to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where he studied under Pomponius Laetus and Theodorus Gaza
Theodorus Gaza
Theodorus Gaza or Theodore Gazis also called by the epithet Thessalonicensis and Thessalonikeus was a Greek humanist and translator of Aristotle, one of the Greek scholars who were the leaders of the...
. By 1468 he had returned to Verona, where Frederick III
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick the Peaceful KG was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452...
awarded him a laurel crown for his poetry.
He completed his education at the University of Padua
University of Padua
The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...
, where he was appointed professor of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
there in 1477. Two years later he revisited Venice, but returned to Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
when the plague
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
broke out in his native city.
Career
Barbaro had an active political career, though he resented these duties as a distraction from his studies. In 1483 he was elected to the Senate of the Republic of VeniceRepublic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
. He was twenty when he gave the funeral oration for Doge Nicholas Marcello.
In 1486, he was sent to the court of the Duchy of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
in Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
. In 1488 he held the important civil post of ‘’Savio di Terrafirma’’. In 1489 he was appointed ambassador to Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and in 1490 he was appointed Ambassador to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. In 1491, Pope Innocent VIII
Pope Innocent VIII
Pope Innocent VIII , born Giovanni Battista Cybo , was Pope from 1484 until his death.-Early years:Giovanni Battista Cybo was born at Genoa of Greek extraction...
, nominated him to the office of Patriarch of Aquileia
Patriarch of Aquileia
The Patriarch of Aquileia was an office in the Roman Catholic Church. During the Middle Ages the Patriarchate of Aquileia was a temporal state in Northern Italy. The Patriarchate of Aquileia as a church office was suppressed in 1752....
.
It was illegal under Venetian law for ambassadors to accept gifts or positions of foreign heads of state. Barbaro was accused of treason and the Venetian Senate ordered him to refuse the position. Pope Innocent and his successor Alexander VI threatened to excommunicate Barbaro if he resigned as Patriarch of Aquileia.
The Venetian Senate revoked Barbaro’s appointment as ambassador and exiled him from Venice. They threatened the same for his father, Zaccaria, as well as confiscation of both men's property, but Zaccaria died shortly afterwards.
Barbaro then lived in a Roman villa
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
on the Pincian Hill
Pincian Hill
The Pincian Hill is a hill in the northeast quadrant of the historical center of Rome. The hill lies to the north of the Quirinal, overlooking the Campus Martius...
belonging to his brothers Daniele and Ludovico. He died there of the plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
in 1493 and was buried at the church of Santa Maria del Popolo
Santa Maria del Popolo
Santa Maria del Popolo is an Augustinian church located in Rome, Italy.It stands to the north side of the Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous squares in the city. The Piazza is situated between the ancient Porta Flaminia and the park of the Pincio...
. Ferdinando Ughelli
Ferdinando Ughelli
Ferdinando Ughelli was an Italian Cistercian monk and church historian.-Biography:He was born in Florence. He entered the Cistercian Order and was sent to the Gregorian University in Rome, where he studied under the Jesuits Francesco Piccolomini and John de Lugo.He filled many important posts in...
mentions an inscription to Barbaro there, but it was lost by 1758. Valeriano
Piero Valeriano Bolzani
Piero Valeriano Bolzani , born Giampietro Valeriano Bolzani, was an Italian Renaissance humanist, favored by the Medici.-Life:...
wrote a tribute to Barbaro.
Scholarly works
Barbaro edited and translated a number of classicalClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
works: Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
’s ‘’Ethics’’ and ‘’Politics’’ (1474); Aristotle's Rhetorica (1479);
Themistius
Themistius
Themistius , named , was a statesman, rhetorician, and philosopher. He flourished in the reigns of Constantius II, Julian, Jovian, Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius I; and he enjoyed the favour of all those emperors, notwithstanding their many differences, and the fact that he himself was not a...
' Paraphrases of certain works of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
(1481);Castigationes in Pomponium Melam (1493).
His own work, ‘’De Coelibatu’’ was less influential, but Barbaro’s Castigationes Plinianae, published in Rome in 1492 by Eucharius Silber, was perhaps his most influential work. , In this discussion of Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
's Natural History Barbaro made 5000 corrections to the text. The work was written in only twenty months and dedicated to the newly elected Pope Alexander VI. Castigationes Plinianae was considered by Barbaro’s contemporaries to be the most authoritative work on Pliny. Even before his death, he was considered a leading authority on the Greek and Latin works of antiquity. Erasmus frequently cited Barbaro’s works, often with respect.
His letters to Giovanni Pico
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of...
were also widely circulated. Much of his work was published after his death: ‘’In Dioscuridem Corelari’’, a work on Dioscorides, in 1510, his translations of Aristotle in 1544, and ‘’Compendium Scientae Naturalis’’ in 1545.
Castigationes Plinianae was considered by Barbaro’s contemporaries to be the most authoritative work on Pliny. Even before his death, he was considered a leading authority on the Greek and Latin works of antiquity. Erasmus frequently cited Barbaro’s works, often with respect.
Barbaro's work "De Officio Legati" was representative of a revolution in the conduct of diplomacy which took place during the Renaissance.