Marcantonio Barbaro
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Marcantonio Barbaro (1518–1595) was an Italian diplomat of the Republic of Venice.
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[edit] Family
He was born in Venice into the aristocratic Barbaro family. His father was Francesco di Daniele Barbaro and his mother Elena Pisani, daughter of the banker Alvise Pisani and Cecilia Giustinian. On the death of Francesco Barbaro, Marcantonio and his elder brother Daniele Barbaro jointly inherited a country estate at Maser. There was already a house on the estate, but the brothers replaced it with a new house designed for them by the architect Palladio; this Villa Barbaro is now preserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto". Marcantonio had four children by Giustina Ziustiniani, one of which, Francesco became Patriarch of Aquileia, and another, Alvise married a daughter of Jacopo Foscarini [1].
[edit] Career and interests
Marcantonio studied at the University of Padua. He served in France as a diplomat in the 1560s, [2] and later, as ambassador to the Sublime Porte (ie, the Turkish Empire), negotiated a peace treaty in the aftermath of his country's loss of Cyprus in 1571 and the Battle of Lepanto later the same year.
Marcantonio was highly cultured and took a close interest in architecture. He was one of three Venetian noblemen appointed to oversee the rebuilding of the Rialto Bridge,[3] and also reported on significant buildings in Istanbul in his ambassadorial despatches. He was also an amateur sculptor. [4] The brothers used their influence to help Palladio gain commissions in the city of Venice, eg the church of the Redentore which was begun in 1577 [5].
Marcantonio was an early pioneer of Jewish rights within the Republic of Venice. He played an instrumental role in acceptance of Solomon of Udine, Turkish ambassador to Venice, at the Doge's Palace.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ Venice and the Renaissance, Manfredo Tafuri, trans.Jessica Levine, 1989, MIT Press, ISBN 0262700549
- ^ Despatches of Michele Suriano and Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Venetian Ambassadors at the Court of France, 1560-1563 Michele Suriano, Sir Austen Henry Layard, Marco Antonio Barbaro, published 1891
- ^ Venice and the Renaissance, Manfredo Tafuri, 1989 MIT Press, ISBN 0262700549
- ^ The Perfect House Rybczynski, Witold 2002
- ^ Venice between East and West: Marc'Antonio Barbaro and Palladio's Church of the Redentore Deborah Howard, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sep., 2003), pp. 306-325 (article consists of 20 pages) Published by: Society of Architectural Historians
- ^ [Jewish Encyclopedia]
