586 margaret l. king
Christian Humanism in Veniceas well as in their political and historical works, the humanists of Venice
reaffirmed their allegiance to traditional religious values, composing a range
of christian works: hagiographies, devotional texts, histories of religious
orders, calls for reform.44 The large component of christian writing in
the Venetian intellectual tradition, overwhelmingly by members of the
nobility both lay and clerical, lends some support to the claim of ardent
piety put forth by the city’s advocates. Just as Manfredo Tafuri has shown
the importance of religious themes in Venetian architectural programs and
culture more generally,45 and edward Muir has shown how religious
rituals were adapted for political purposes,46 a recognition of the religious
commitment of the intellectual elite is essential for an understanding of
Venetian intellectual life.
humanist authors of hagiographies include four high-ranking patrician
humanists: in chronological sequence, leonardo Giustiniani, who dedi-
cated his translation from the Greek of the Vita beati Nicolai Myrensis
Episcopi [Life of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra] to his brother lorenzo
Giustiniani, the first patriarch of Venice; ludovico Foscarini, who dedi-
cated his Gesta martyrum Victoris et Coronae [Deeds of the Martyrs Victor
and Corona] to Jacopo, son of doge Francesco Foscari; Francesco diedo,
who dedicated his Vita Sancti Rochi [Life of Saint Roch, 1478/1479] to the
citizens of Brescia; and Bernardo Giustiniani, son of leonardo, who (as
discussed above) blended political and religious messages in writing the
history of Saint Mark the evangelist’s life and Venetian destiny.47 notably,
not one of these noble hagiographers was a cleric.
44 For the christian dimensions of Venetian humanist thought, Margaret l. King,
“l’umanesimo cristiano nella Venezia del Quattrocento,” in Bianca Betto, Giorgio cracco,
and Giorgio Fedalto, eds., La chiesa di Venezia tra medioevo ed età moderna, 15–54 (Venice,
1989; repr. in King, Humanism, Venice, and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance,
facsimile repr. no. 3 (aldershot/Burlington, Vt., 2005).
45 Manfredo Tafuri, Venice and the Renaissance, trans. Jessica levine (cambridge, Mass.,
1989) [italian orig., Turin, 1985].
46 Muir, Civic Ritual.
47 See King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 384, 376, 361, and 382. See also the “hand list”
of humanist authors of saints’ lives, which includes Venetian authors ermolao Barbaro
the elder; Pietro Barozzi, Francesco diedo, ludovico Foscarini, Bernardo Giustiniani,
leonardo Giustiniani, Moro lapi, Marcantonio Sabellico, niccolò Sagundino (nicolaus
Secundinus), and Jacopo Zeno, in alison Knowles Frazier, Possible Lives: Authors and
Saints in Renaissance Italy (new York, 2005), pp. 327–494.