NAVAGERO, BERNARDO. - Diplomat and cardinal, b. in Venice in 1507 to Gian Luigi and Lucrezia Agostini, d. in Verona on 13 April 1565; he completed his legal studies in Padua and in 1534 began his career in the offices of the Venetian Republic as syndic inquisitor in Dalmatia. In 1543 he was sent as ambassador to Charles V and followed him in the wars in Flanders and France; in July 1546 he read his report on the matter to the senate. In Sept. 1549 he was sent as bailo to Constantinople and later read his report in the senate in Feb. 1553. In 1555, sent to congratulate Paul IV on his election, he remained in Rome as ordinary ambassador and read his report in 1558.
There also remain from this legation the very interesting dispatches (cod. Marciano 9443). He also undertook certain extraordinary legations, until, upon the death in 1560 of his wife Istriana Lando, he entered the ecclesiastical state. On 26 Feb. 1561 Pius IV created him cardinal; then he gave him in commendam the bishopric of Verona on 15 Sept. 1562, and on 7 March 1563 appointed him legate to the Council of Trent together with Card. Morone. Once the Council was closed, N. moved to Verona, where he died suddenly, leaving behind a reputation as a man "magnae auctoritatis tum Romae tum Venetiis."
The three reports to the Senate are in E. Alberi, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti, I (Florence 1839), pp. 239-368; III (ibid. 1840), pp. 33-110; VII (ibid. 1846), pp. 366-416.
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