ZENO, APOSTOLO. — Historian and poet, born in Venice on 11 December 1668, and died there on 11 November 1750.
He devoted himself entirely to his studies. His Library and Museum in Venice, where he gathered the fruits of his erudite research, were famous. From 1719 to 1731 he lived in Vienna, succeeding Pietro Pariati as «poet and historian of His Imperial Majesty» the emperor Charles VI. In 1710 he had founded the Giornale dei letterati d'Italia, gathering around himself poets, scholars, and erudites. Testimony to his vast learning is found in the four volumes of history that he added to the work of Fr. Antonio Foresti: the Mappamondo istorico; the biographies of Sabellico, Guarino, Davila, and the three Manuzi; the corrections, observations, and additions to the Dissertazioni Vossiane on the Italian historians who wrote in Latin; the extremely useful notes to the Biblioteca dell'Eloguenza italiana of Archbishop G. Fontanini; his studies in numismatics and literary history; and his Lettere (edited by J. Morelli, Venice 1785, 6 vols.). He gave Muratori the material he had collected on the Italian historians of the Middle Ages. He composed 60 dramas for music: Andromaca, Temistocle, Merupe, Eumene, Alessandro Severo (Poesie, Drammi, Melodrammi, edited by G. Gozzi, there 1744, 10 vols.), drawing inspiration from the Greek, Spanish, and French tragedians, and brought opera within fixed rules. His poetic work includes the Poesie sacre drammatiche (there 1735), sung in the imperial chapel of Vienna: 16 oratorios, intended not for performance but solely for singing, among them: Sisara, Tobia, Giuseppe, Davide, Isaia, Il Battista, Gionata, Daniello, La Gerusalemme convertita, Gesù presentato nel Tempio. Benedetto Marcello set Giooz to music; Alessandro Scarlatti made use of his «libretti».
Z. is buried in Venice, beside the church of S. Francesco della Vigna; the epitaph, placed there by the Dominican Fathers, expresses gratitude to the poet and historian «religione, morum suavitate, eruditione multiplici praestantissimo».