BARBARIGO, GREGORIO, blessed. — Born in Venice to Gian Francesco and Lucrezia Leoni on 16 September 1625, he died in Padua on 18 June 1697. Having completed his studies in Padua, he accompanied the Venetian ambassador Alvise Contarini to Münster on the occasion of the celebrated negotiations for peace in Germany. On returning to Venice, he was elected Savio agli Ordini, but Fabio Chigi, who had come to know him at Münster, urged him to enter the clergy; in December 1655 he was ordained a priest in Venice. Chigi, having become Alessandro VII, summoned him to Rome in 1656 and made him his domestic prelate, entrusting him with important assignments. Appointed bishop of Bergamo on 10 July 1657 and created cardinal on 5 April 1660, he was recalled to Rome in 1663 and then, in April 1664, transferred to the diocese of Padua. The pastoral activity begun in Bergamo found ample scope for fruitful expression in Padua through enlightened charitable work and
pastoral visitations. He devoted particular care to the reorganization of the Tridentine seminaries, which were then passing through a period of decline. He began with that of Bergamo, but in Padua he displayed his remarkable abilities on a large scale, stimulated by his multifaceted culture and by the deterioration into which ecclesiastical studies at the University of Padua itself had fallen. Having transferred the seminary to the suppressed monastery of Vanzo and brought it into better order, he set about promoting the study of Latin and Greek, for which that seminary retained an excellent reputation throughout the 18th century, and reorganizing ecclesiastical studies in accordance with new needs, proposing new Regulae studiorum composed by himself (cf. S. Serena, L'Opera del card. b. G. B. nel Seminario di Padova, Padova 1938, p. 33 sgg.). In 1684 he founded beside the seminary a new, exceptionally well-equipped printing press for the publication of school texts, classical authors, and the Fathers; he wanted it supplied not only with Greek type, but also with Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, and Persian type, because B. also kept his eyes turned toward the East, in the hope of contributing to the religious rapprochement of those peoples (cf. S. Serena, Il card. G.B. e l'Oriente, Roma 1938). In this respect B. served as a model for other prelates in the development of their seminaries. B. took part in the Conclaves of 1667 and 1669, from which Clement IX and Clement X emerged. In that of July 1676 some cardinals proposed his candidacy, but he brought the votes together behind the man who became Innocent XI. In the Conclave of 1689, when his election seemed well under way, he promoted the election of Alessandro VIII. After the latter's death, he received as many as 35 votes in the new Conclave (1691); but this candidacy too failed, because there was excessive fear of B.'s rectitude (cf. S. Serena, Il card. G.B. ed il Conclave del 1691, Padova 1933).
He was beatified by Clement XIII on 20 September 1761. WORKS: Scritti inediti del b. G. B., published by P. A. Uccelli, Parma 1877; G. B., Lettere pastorali, editti e decreti, published at various times, Padova 1920; Quarantadue lettere del b. G. B. a Gio. Pastrizio, with a preface and notes by S. Serena, Padova 1938; Clarorum Venetorum ad Antonium Magliabechium epistolae, II, Firenze 1746, p. 28 sgg.; Lettere del b. G. B. a M. A. Ferrazzi, Padova 1934.