NAVAGERO, BERNARDO. — Diplomat and cardinal, born in Venice in 1507 to Gian Luigi and Lucrezia Agostini, died in Verona on 13 April 1565; after completing legal studies in Padua, in 1534 he began his career in the offices of the Venetian Republic as inquisitorial magistrate in Dalmatia. In 1543 he was sent as ambassador to Charles V and accompanied him in the wars in Flanders and France; in July 1546 he read his report on this to the Senate. In September 1549 he was sent as bailo to Constantinople and later read his report to the Senate in February 1553. In 1555 he was sent as ordinary ambassador to Rome and read his report in 1558.
Of this legation there remain the very interesting dispatches (cod. Marciano 9445). He also undertook several extraordinary legations until, after the death of his wife Istriana Lando in 1560, he entered the ecclesiastical state. On 26 February 1561 Pius IV created him cardinal; then on 15 September 1562 he granted him in commendam the bishopric of Verona, and on 7 March 1563 designated him as legate to the Council of Trent together with Cardinal Morone. After the Council closed, N. moved to Verona, where he died suddenly, leaving a reputation as a man “of great authority both in Rome and in Venice.”
The three reports to the Senate are in E. Alberi, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti, I (Florence 1839), pp. 230-368; III (ibid. 1840), pp. 33-110; VII (ibid. 1846), pp. 366-416.