QUERINI, ANGELO MARIA. - Cardinal and scholar, b. in Venice on 30 March 1680, d. in Brescia on 6 January 1755. Having entered the Benedictine monastery in Florence in 1696, he acquired extensive learning, particularly in history. In 1710 he traveled to Germany, Holland, England, and France, collecting manuscripts and rare books and forming relationships with the leading scholars of the time. Returning to Italy in 1714 and appointed writer of the Benedictine annals, in 1717 he published his principal historical-methodological work, *De Monastica historia conscribenda*.
Archbishop of Corfu (1724) and later bishop of Brescia (1727), he attended to his pastoral duties, residing constantly in his diocese, except for brief periods even after being created cardinal (1727) and librarian of the Holy Roman Church. His relations with Benedict XIV were mixed, though they exchanged a substantial correspondence. Esteemed by Voltaire and Frederick II of Prussia, he welcomed their flattery and maintained epistolary relations with them. A prolific polygraph, he left numerous writings. He also distinguished himself by his charity and patronage; in Brescia, he founded the Queriniana Library (1745), opened to the public in 1750; today it is the civic library of Brescia and contains approximately 1,500 manuscripts, precious documents, 900 incunabula, and 217,000 volumes, as well as the construction of a new temple.