Marcantonio Barbaro

Marcantonio Barbaro depicted by Tintoretto

Marcantonio Barbaro (1518–1595) was an important Venetian diplomat, intellectual, and defender of civic rights. In the 1560s he served as Venetian Ambassador to France at the court of King Charles IX of France and in 1568 he was appointed the Ambassador to Istanbul at the Sublime Porte. Marcantonio Barbaro was also instrumental in negotiating a peace treaty following a difficult period in Venetian-Turkish relations caused by the loss of Cyprus in August 1571 and the Battle of Lepanto a couple of months later.

He was born in Venice of the noble Barbaro family. His father was Francesco di Daniele Barbaro and his mother Elena Pisani, daughter of the banker Alvise Pisani and Cecilia Zustiniani, who were also Venetian patricians. Marcantonio was the brother of Daniele Barbaro. The brothers are famous for their patronage of the architect Andrea Palladio and the painter Paolo Veronese, both of which designed and decorated the family's Villa Barbaro at Maser, which is now preserved as part of a World Heritage Site. Marcantonio was also a talented artist in his own right, and he may have had a hand in the sculptural program of Villa Barbaro, while his brother Daniele, an expert of architecture, established very specific guidelines for Palladio to follow in the villa's design. The brothers were also able to use their influence to help Palladio gain commissions to design further works, such as Il Redentore.

Marcantonio was responsible for reforming the admission policies of the University of Padua, insuring women, such as Elena Cornaro Piscopia, and Jewish students the right to a formal university education, thereby making the University of Padua the first university in the history of Western education to adopt such an inclusive policy. Marcantonio was also instrumental in ensuring protection of Jewish settlers within the Republic of Venice, and he had an important role in creating more opportunities for the Jewish peoples within the long History of the Jews in Italy. This is exemplified by Marcantonio's approval of the two Jewish diplomats selected to negotiate within the Republic of Venice, Solomon of Udine, who became the Turkish ambassador to Venice, and Jacob Soranzo, an agent for the Venetian Republic at Constantinople. Udine's son, Nathan, became one of the first Jewish students to study at the University of Padua under Marcantonio's policy.

Marcantonio was also one of three Venetian noblemen to oversee the rebuilding of the Rialto Bridge, and he had four children by the noblewoman Giustina Giustinian, one of which, Francesco, became Patriarch of Aquileia, and another, Alvise, married a daughter of the noble Jacopo Foscarini .

Further reading

• La Vie d'un patricien de Venise au seizième siècle, Charles Yriarte, Paris, 1874
• "Barbaro Marcantonio", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol.6, Franco Gaeta, Rome, 1964, 110-112.