ZENO, Jacopo. — Humanist, bishop of Belluno and Feltre and later of Padua, b. in Venice in 1418, d. in April 1481.
He spent his youth in close association with Pietro Barbo, the future Paul II, and studied in Padua, where he earned his doctorate in utroque [iuris] in 1440. He then went to Venice, to the household of the Giustiniani family, and to Florence, where in the great assemblies of the Council he came into contact with eminent figures and displayed his learning. In 1444 he was in Rome as an apostolic subdeacon; in 1447 he was elected bishop of Belluno and Feltre by Nicholas V, serving as apostolic assistant and referendary; on 26 March 1460 he was transferred to Padua; but from 30 August 1464 (when Paul II was elected) until the spring of 1469 he resided again in Rome.
He left a museum, a rich library, and many notable works distinguished by style and thought, including (besides numerous reports or chronicles, orations, and letters, most unpublished): De vita, moribus rebusque gestis Caroli Zeni ad Pium II (RIS, XX [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 1-163); Vita b. Nicolai Caroli Albergati Carthusiani episcopi Bononiensis (Cologne 1618 and Acta SS. Maii, I, Venice 1738, pp. 469-77); Vita Summorum Pontificum up to Clement V (cod. Vat. lat. 5942 and Chig. F. VIII, 198).