Barbaro, Ermolao (the Younger)

BARBARO, ERMOLAO (THE YOUNGER). - Nephew of the namesake bishop of Verona, born in Venice to Zaccaria in 1453, died in Rome on 21 May 1493. Between 1460 and 1470 he was in Rome with his father, where he was able to be a disciple of Pomponius Laetus and of Theodore Gaza for Greek. Then he moved to Padua and in 1475-76 he lectured there on the moral works of Aristotle; while in 1484 he held there a school of Aristotelian doctrines. For the Venetian Republic he was sent as orator to Emperor Frederick III in 1486, to Ludovico il Moro in 1488, and to the Roman Curia in 1490. While he was carrying out this legation, Cardinal Marco Barbo, patriarch of Aquileia, having died on 2 March, Innocent VIII raised him to that see on 6 March, although he was a simple layman, and he accepted it, in obedience to the will of the Pope; in this way he incurred the disfavor of the Signoria, as a violator of the laws that forbade its orators to receive any favor from the sovereigns to whom they were accredited. The Republic never wished to recognize him as patriarch.

The B. was in contact and in correspondence with the most illustrious scholars of his time, such as Angelo Poliziano, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Vernia, Elijah del Medigo; he translated the works of Dioscorides and Themistius, and also set about translating all those of Aristotle, but could not go beyond the rhetorical and dialectical works. Besides philosophical studies, B. also cultivated with particular passion erudite studies, and his Castigationes Plinianae on the text of Pliny's Historia Naturalis, printed in Rome in 1492-93, were highly esteemed. He may rightly be considered the complete humanist, not yet degenerated into the pedant.

Pio Paschini