Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance

VENETIAN HUMANISM IN AN AGE OF PATRICIAN DOMINANCE

Margaret L. King

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright © 1986 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-05465-7 This book has been composed in Linotron Sabon Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey Frontispiece: Guarino Veronese Presents the Strabo to the Venetian humanist and patron Jacopo Antonio Marcello. Attributed to Andrea Mantegna. Albi, Bibhotheque Municipale, MS 77, fol. 3" FOR MY FAMILY, WITH LOVE: Reno and Marie King Robert E. Kessler David and Jeremy King Kessler

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Xl

GUIDE TO THE FORMAT OF CITATIONS IN NOTES, PROFILES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHY XUi

ABBREVIATIONS XV

INTRODUCTION: A City Without Walls xvii

Part One

ONE. The Humanists: Or do litteratorum 3 1. The New Learning (3) 2. Learned Friends (12) 3. Schools and Teachers (18) 4. A Training in Values (23) 5. The Ideal of Excellence (25) 6. Humanism and Piety (31) 7. Serving the Republic (37) 8. Clients (49) 9. Patrons (54) 10. Patricians and Commoners (58) 11. Outsiders (70) 12. The Order of Scribes (76) 13. The Stratified Society of Venetian Humanism (90)

TWO. Themes: Unanimitas 92 1. Francesco Barbara on Marriage (92) 2. Giovanni Caldiera: A Trilogy and a Concordance (98) 3. Lauro Quirini on the Aristocratic Republic (118) 4. Paolo Morosini in Defense of (132) 5. Domenico Morosini on the Well-Managed Republic (140) 6. Pietro Barozzi on Rooting out Factions (150) 7. Ermolao Barbara the Elder on the Dangers of Poetry (157) 8. An Overview (161) 9. Themes of Unanimitas (174) 10. Dissent (192)

THREE. Choices: Moenia civitatis 206 1. Prelude: The Fourteenth-Century Background (208) 2. Three Generations of Patrician Humanism (217) 3. The First Generation (219) 4. The Second Generation (225) 5. The Third Generation (231) 6. Aftermath (236) 7. Conclusions (244)

VIl CONTENTS

Part Two

PREFACE. The Venetian Humanist Circle (1400-1490): Definition of the Core Group 255 1. Definition of the Core Group: Sources (255) 2. The Cri­ terion of Activity (257) 3. The Criterion of Significance (258) 4. The Criterion of Residence (260) 5. The Criterion of Gen­ eration (261) 6. Excluded, Marginal, and Peripheral Figures (262) 7. Exclusion by the Criterion of Activity (264) 8. Ex­ clusion by the Criterion of Significance (265) 9. Exclusion by the Criterion of Residence (267) 10. Exclusion by the Criterion of Generation (269) 11. Peripheral Figures (272) 12. Possibility of Distortion (274) 13. The Core Group Ana­ lyzed (276) 14. Conclusions (299) 15. Format of the Profiles (304)

PROFILES 315 Ulisse Aleotti (315) Marco Aurelio (315) Sebastiano Badoer (317) Girolamo Barbarigo (319) Ermolao Barbara Vecchio (320) Ermolao Barbaro Giovane (322) Francesco Barbara (323) Zaccaria Barbaro (325) Marco Barbo (327) Niccolo Barbo (328) Paolo Barbo (329) Pietro Barbo (331) Francesco Barozzi (332) Pietro Barozzi (333) (335) Antonio Bernardo (339) Candiano Bollani (340) Domenico Bollani (341) Benedetto Brognoli (342) Pietro Bruto (343) Giovanni Caldiera (344) Antonio Calvo (345) Niccolo Canal (347) Febo Capella (348) Pietro Cirneo (349) Francesco Con- tarini (350) Pietro Contarini (351) Andrea Contrario (352) Federico Corner (353) Giovanni Corner (354) Gregorio Cor- rer (355) Fantino Dandolo (357) Marco Dandolo (359) Fran­ cesco Diedo (361) Pietro Dolfin (362) Domenico de' Do- menichi (363) Antonio Donato (365) (366) Ludovico Donato (368) Marco Donato (369) Pietro Donato (370) Jacopo Foscari (372) Pietro Foscari (373) Ludovico Foscarini (374) Tito Livio Frulovisi (377) Domenico Giorgi (378) Andrea Giuliani (379) Bernardo Giustiniani (381) Leonardo Giustiniani (383) Vitale Lando (385) Jacopo Lan- guschi (386) Niccolo Leonardi (387) Marco Lippomano (389) Giovanni Lorenzi (390) Giovanni Marcanova (392) Jacopo Antonio Marcello (393) Pietro Marcello Vecchio (397) Pietro Marcello Giovane (398) Giovanni Marino (399)

VlIl CONTENTS Giorgio Merula (400) Pietro Miani (402) Pietro Molin (403) Pietro del Monte (405) Filippo Morandi (406) Barbone Mo- rosini (407) Domenico Morosini (409) Marcantonio Mo- rosini (410) Paolo Morosini (412) Francesco Negri (413) Michele Orsini (415) Pietro Perleone (416) Paolo Pisani (418) Lauro Quirini (419) Taddeo Quirini (421) Jacopo Ragazzoni (422) Paolo Ramusio (423) Daniele Renier (424) Marcan­ tonio Sabellico (425) Niccolo Sagundino (427) Leonardo Sanuto (430) Marco Sanuto (431) Niccolo Leonico Tomeo (432) Pietro Tommasi (434) Zaccaria Trevisan Vecchio (436) Zaccaria Trevisan Giovane (437) Giorgio Valla (439) Fantino Vallaresso (440) Maffeo Vallaresso (441) Antonio Vinci- guerra (443) Daniele Vitturi (444) Lorenzo Zane (446) Ja­ copo Zeno (447)

BIBLIOGRAPHY 451 INDEX 501

IX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WITHOUT the assistance I have received from individuals and insti­ tutions, I could not have written this book. An American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship freed me from one year of teaching duties, and a Brooklyn College sabbatical from a second. A grant-in-aid from the ACLS, four grants jointly funded by the City University and its Professional Staff Congress, and two from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation made seven trips to Venice possible. Brooklyn College monies and a grant from the American Philosophical Society permitted me to buy essential microfilms to read at home when I couldn't read abroad. Columbia University through its University Seminar program has graciously extended library privileges to me as an Associate of the Seminar on the Renaissance. The support of Brooklyn College and the Department of History for my research efforts has been invaluable. My research called me to archives and libraries in Italy, Spain, France, and England, where I received courteous assistance from li­ brarians sympathetic to my bewilderment, haste, and extraordinary requests. I note especially the assistance I received from the profes­ sionals at the Archivio di Stato, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, and Biblioteca of the Museo Correr in Venice, and the Biblioteca Uni- versitaria and Biblioteca of the Museo Civico in . I am grateful to the publishers of the Renaissance Quarterly and the Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies for permitting me to reprint in revised form sections of my articles-appearing in those jour­ nals: respectively, "Personal, Domestic and Republican Values in the Moral Philosophy of Giovanni Caldiera," 28 (1975), 535-74, and "Caldiera and the Barbaros on Marriage and the Family: Humanist Reflections of Venetian Realities," 6 (1976), 19-50. Upon the first article is based section 2, upon the second, sections 1 and (in part) 10 of Chapter Two. Over the years many friends have made suggestions, passed on references, and offered criticisms: among them Patricia Labalme, Don­ ald Queller, Albert Rabil, Lewis Spitz (my dissertation advisor). The members of the Columbia University Seminar on the Renaissance and of the Executive Board of the Renaissance Society of America have provided fellowship in this mission, and many gems of advice. And I recall with fondness my colleagues in the Archivio di Stato in Venice—

Xl ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the topi di Archivio—with whom I shared mid-morning coffee breaks (no more than ten minutes), summer heat, and unmitigated winter cold: Stanley Chojnacki, Robert Finlay, Paul Grendler, Deborah How­ ard, Martin Lowry, Jill Moore, Reinhold Mueller, Richard Rapp, Guido Ruggiero, James Williamson, and others. Gladys Krieble Del- mas, from whose exceptional generosity a whole generation of scholars has benefited, has in recent years greeted me when in Venice with encouragement and interest. My Venetian hosts Giovanna and Franco Marzollo have made the city a home to me and my husband. In these days when publishers prefer short and simple books, I acknowledge with special gratitude my debt to R. Miriam Brokaw of Princeton University Press. She looked seriously at a gargantuan man­ uscript from an unknown historian, with the result now before you. One figure overshadows this book. Paul Oskar Kristeller, a great scholar and cherished friend, has taught me my trade. I regret the errors which mar this work, but regret them most of all because they would pain him. Its virtues are very much due to his guidance. My family deserves much more than a dedication. For years they have labored in my vineyard. My mother screened articles, looked up references, typed, numbered, and filed. My father gave me a word processor (when that miracle was new, but still almost too late) and insisted I use it. He has supervised each disk and printout since. My husband provided endless support, and suffered dinners alone, cold dinners, no dinners, on many late nights. A journalist, he insisted on the deletion of many polysyllables in the manuscript. I have indulged myself with a few. My sons David (born between Chapter Three and the Profiles) and Jeremy (born between the penultimate and final re­ visions) bravely bore their mother's absence. They know that Mommy makes words and think that might be all right for her; they have other ambitions. This book is theirs more than mine.

XIl GUIDE TO THE FORMAT OF CITATIONS IN NOTES, PROFILES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

BECAUSE of the great length of the apparatus in this book, the notes do not give full first references. Full publication information is pro­ vided in the bibliography. The primary sources cited in notes, bibliography and profiles are those to which I have access—not necessarily the best. In some cases where a manuscript source is given, other manuscript versions abound; in some cases, an existing printed version has not been seen. For the core group figures, these circumstances are explained in the profiles. The notes and profiles of core group figures list some works not ac­ tually seen if they are essential. There titles are given with the notation "not seen" and are accompanied by data of publication or location to the extent that they are known. Where useful, guidance to further information about the work is provided. The bibliography includes only those works actually seen by me. Thus the profiles are a more comprehensive guide to the work of core group figures than the bib­ liography. Where a primary work exists in more than one manuscript or printed version, the bibliography gives the version I have used; the profiles may cite alternate versions, or provide guidance to a listing of alternate versions, or merely indicate that the work is widely diffused in manuscript or available in several printed editions. The many man­ uscript catalogues and standard reference works that were consulted but are not explicitly required for citation in the notes are also excluded from the bibliography. In the notes and profiles, archival sources are cited in short form, using the abbreviations given in the table of abbreviations that follows and in parentheses in the bibliography after the title of each docu­ mentary series. The Arabic numeral immediately following refers to the register (volume) of that documentary series; c. and cc. signify charta and chartae. Both for archival documents and manuscript sources, the r for recto is normally omitted, whereas ν is always shown to indicate verso. I have throughout used the old or original enumer­ ation of archival documents. All dates are given according to our calendar, not as they appear in the documents more veneto (whereby the year begins on 1 March). All citations of documents in the profiles

XlIl GUIDE TO CITATIONS are from the Archivio di Stato in Venice unless specific note is made; elsewhere, a documentary citation is preceded by ASV (for the Venetian archive) or other indication of location. In the notes and bibliography, manuscript locations are indicated with city (Anglicized), library, and shelfmark. Manuscripts from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Venice) and Biblioteca Apostolica Va- ticana (the most frequently cited), however, are given only in abbre­ viated form: Marc. Lat., Marc. Ital., Vat. Lat., Vat. Ottob. Lat., Vat. Chis., etc., without preliminary "cod.," and followed by shelfmark. Information about the manuscript (age, fabric, etc.) has not been in­ cluded. References to catalogues in which such information appears or from which the manuscript was located have also been omitted unless, in isolated cases, an explicit reference is required. For manu­ scripts, fol. and fols. are used for folio and folios. Some works consist of one or a few letters or similar material and are not formally titled as they appear in manuscripts or printed edi­ tions. I have supplied a title in brackets: [Epistolae], three [epistolae], etc. Works in manuscript and older printed editions often have elaborate titles that are not standard in all versions. Titles have been shortened, therefore, to essential information, although I have not standardized the titles in violation of the word order given in the version I cite. Honorific appellations or titles preceding names {illustrissimus, re- verendissimus, dominus, etc.) and editorial information extending the titles especially of older printed works are often omitted. Older editions are cited with information about place, date, and printer in Anglicized, modernized, and condensed form. Punctuation of manuscript and old (fifteenth- and sixteenth-century) editions is altered to conform with modern usage. Emendations have been suggested sparingly and where necessary for sense. Names of authors normally (always for core group figures) are given in a standardized Italian form. When the name reappears in the title in a form, I have usually omitted it from the notes and bibli­ ography. In the notes, profiles, and bibliography, V and G signify vecchio (elder) and giovane (younger). These terms are used when two related figures with the same name are discussed in this work.

XlV