BARBARIGO, GREGORIO, Blessed. - Born in Venice to Gian Francesco and Lucrezia Leoni on 16 Sept. 1625, died in Padua on 18 June 1697. After completing his studies in Padua, he accompanied the Venetian envoy Alvise Contarini to Münster for the famous negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia. Upon his return to Venice, he was elected Savio agli Ordini, but Fabio Chigi, who had met him in Münster, urged him to enter the clergy; in December 1655 he was ordained a priest in Venice. Chigi, now Alexander VII, summoned him to Rome in 1656 and appointed him his domestic prelate, entrusting him with important tasks. Named 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 he had begun in Bergamo bore abundant fruit in Padua through enlightened charity and pastoral visits. He took particular care to reform the Tridentine seminaries, which were then in a state of decline. He began with that of Bergamo, but in Padua he fully manifested his ingenious activity, spurred by his multifaceted culture and the decay into which ecclesiastical studies had fallen even at the University of Padua. After transferring the seminary to the suppressed monastery of Vanzo and reorganizing it, he devoted himself to promoting the study of Latin and Greek, for which the seminary retained an excellent reputation throughout the 18th century, and to reorganizing ecclesiastical studies according to new needs, proposing new Regulae studiorum that he himself had drafted (cf. S. Serena, *L'Opera del card. b. G. B. nel Seminario di Padova*, Padua 1938, pp. 33 ff.). In 1684 he founded next to the seminary a new, fully equipped printing press for the publication of school texts, classics, and the Fathers; and he ensured that it was supplied not only with Greek type but also with Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, and Persian fonts, for Barbarigo kept a watchful eye on the East in the hope of contributing to the religious rapprochement of those peoples (cf. S. Serena, *Il card. G.B. e l'Oriente*, Rome 1938). In this he served as a model for other prelates in the development of their own seminaries.
Barbarigo participated in the conclaves of 1667 and 1669, which elected Clement IX and Clement X. In that of July 1676 some cardinals proposed his candidacy, but he directed votes toward the one who became Innocent XI. In the conclave of 1689, when his election seemed well underway, he promoted the election of Alexander VIII. Upon Alexander’s death, he gathered up to 35 votes in the new conclave (1691); but this candidacy also failed because his rectitude was greatly feared (cf. S. Serena, *Il card. G.B. ed il Conclave del 1691*, Padua 1933).
He was beatified by Clement XIII on 20 Sept. 1761. Works: *Scritti inediti del b. G.B.*, published by P.A. Uccelli, Parma 1877; G. B., *Lettere pastorali, editti e decreti, pubblicati in diversi tempi*, Padua 1920; *Quarantadue lettere del b. G. B. a Giov. Pastrizio*, with preface and notes by S. Serena, Padua 1938; *Clarorum Venetorum ad Antonium Maglabechium epistolae*, II, Florence 1746, pp. 28 ff.; *Lettere del b. G. B. a M. A. Ferrazzi*, Padua 1934.