Daniele Barbaro
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Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro (also Barbarus; 8 February 1514 - 1570) was an Italian translator of, and commentator on, Vitruvius. He also had a significant ecclesiastical career, reaching the rank of Cardinal.
He was born in Venice, the son of Francesco di Daniele Barbaro and Elena Pisani, daughter of the banker Alvise Pisani and Cecilia Giustinian [1]. Barbaro studied philosophy, mathematics, and optics at the University of Padua.
Barbaro served the Republic of Venice as ambassador to the court of Elizabeth I in London and as representative at the Council of Trent. His appointment as Cardinal may have been secret (in pectore) to avoid causing diplomatic complications. He was also Patriarch of Aquileia, an ecclesiastical appointment which required the approval of the Venetian Senate.
On the death of his father, he inherited a country estate with his brother Marcantonio Barbaro. They commissioned Palladio to design their shared country home Villa Barbaro, which is now part of a World Heritage Site. The villa was decorated with frescoes by Paolo Veronese, who also painted oil portraits of Daniele; the one reproduced above on this article shows him dressed as a Venetian aristocrat, the one below shows him in clerical dress.[2]
Barbaro's fame is chiefly due to his vast output in the arts, letters, and mathematics. A cultured humanist, he was a friend and admirer of personalities such as Andrea Palladio, Pietro Bembo and Torquato Tasso.
[edit] Works
His works include:
- an edition of the commentaries on Aristotle's Rhetoric by his great-uncle Ermolao Barbaro (1544)
- an edition of Ermolao Barbaro's Compendium scientiae naturalis (1545)
- an Italian translation with extended commentary of Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture, published as Dieci libri dell'architettura di M. Vitruvio (1556). He later published a Latin edition entitled M. Vitruvii de architectura (1567). The original illustrations of Vitruvius' work have not survived, and Barbaro's illustrations were done specially by Andrea Palladio. As well as being important as a discussion of architecture, Barbaro's commentary was a contribution to the field of aesthetics in general. El Greco, for example, owned a copy.
- an important treatise on the science of painting, La pratica della perspettiva (The practice of perspective) (1569). This work describes how to use a lens with a camera obscura.
- an unpublished and unfinished treatise on the construction of sundials (De Horologiis describendis libellus, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, Cod. Lat. VIII, 42, 3097). The latter work was supposed to have discussed other instruments as well, including the astrolabe, the planisphere of Juan de Rojas, the cross-staff, the torquetum, and Abel Foullon's holometer.
[edit] See also
- Perfection (Aesthetic perfection)
- Portrait of Daniele Barbaro
- Barbaro family
[edit] References
- ^ Venice and the Renaissance, Manfredo Tafuri, trans.Jessica Levine, 1989, MIT Press, ISBN 0262700549
- ^ There is a separate article on the portrait of Daniele Barbaro (1565-1567).
- Władysław Tatarkiewicz, History of Aesthetics, vol. III: Modern Aesthetics, edited by D. Petsch, translated from the Polish by Chester A. Kisiel and John F. Besemeres, The Hague, Mouton, 1974.
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