ZENO, APOSTLE. – Historian, poet, b. in Venice (11 Dec. 1668, d. there 2 Nov. 1750).
He lived entirely devoted to his studies. In Venice his Library and Museum were famous, where he gathered the fruit of his scholarly researches. From 1719 to 1731 he resided in Vienna, succeeding Pietro Parati as poet and historian to His Imperial Majesty Charles VI. In 1710 he had founded the Giornale dei letterati d’Italia, gathering around himself poets, scholars and learned men. Testimony to his vast learning are the four volumes of history he added to the work of Fr. Antonio Foresti: the Mappamondo storico, the biographies of Sabellico, Gua-nino, Davila, the three Manuzis; the corrections, observations and additions to the Dissertazioni Vossiane on Italian historians who wrote in Latin; the very useful notes to the Biblioteca dell’Eloquenza italiana by the archivist G. Fontanini; his researches in numismatics and literary history; and his Letters (ed. J. Morelli, Venice 1785, 6 vols.). He turned over to Muratori the material he had collected on Italian medieval historians. He composed sixty musical dramas: Andromaca, Temistocle, Merope, Eumene, Alessandro Severo (Poesie, Drammi, Melodrammi, ed. G. Gozzi, ibid. 1744, 10 vols.), drawing inspiration from Greek, Spanish and French tragedians, and he reduced opera to fixed rules. To his poetic work belong the Poesie sacre drammatiche (ibid. 1735), performed in the imperial chapel at Vienna: sixteen oratorios intended not for the stage but for singing alone, including Sisara, Tobia, Giuseppe, Davide, Isaia, Il Battista, Gionata, Daniello, La Gerusalemme convertita, Gesù presentato nel Tempio. Benedetto Marcello set to music his Gioaz; Alessandro Scarlatti used his libretti.
Z. is buried in Venice beside the church of S. Francesco della Vigna; the epitaph, affixed by the Dominican Fathers, expresses gratitude to the poet and historian most skilled in religion, suavity of morals and manifold learning.