ZENO, JACOPO. - Humanist, bishop of Belluno and Feltre and later of Padova, born in Venezia in 1418, died in April 1481.
He spent his youth in the close company of Pietro Barbo, the future Paolo II, and studied at Padova, where he took his doctorate in utroque (1440). He then went to Venezia, to the Giustiniani family, and to Firenze, where, at the great assemblies of the Council, he came into contact with eminent personages and displayed his learning. In 1444 he was in Rome as an apostolic subdeacon; in 1447 Niccolò V elected him bishop of Belluno and Feltre, apostolic assistant and referendary; on 26 March 1460 he was transferred to Padova; but from 30 Aug. 1464 (the election of Paolo II) until the spring of 1469 he resided once more in Rome.
He left behind a museum, a rich library, and many works distinguished in style and thought, including (besides many accounts or chronicles, orations, and epistles, for the most part unpublished): De vita, moribus rebusque gestis Caroli Zeni ad Pium II (RIS, XX [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 1-163); Vita b. Nicolai card. Albergati Carthusiani episcopi Bononiensis (Colonia 1618 and Acta SS. Maii, I, Venezia 1738, pp. 469-77); Vitae Summorum Pontificum down to Clemente V (cod. Vat. lat. 5942 and Chig. F. VIII, 198).