the venetian intellectual world 591
Bembo, erizzo, and the two Barbaros were all patricians, but a similar
range of interests characterizes some commoner and foreigner intellectu-
als working in Venice. notable was Giorgio Valla, a native of Piacenza who
taught in Venice from 1485 until his death and who published translations
of archimedes, euclid, and Ptolemy, which he incorporated into his mas-
sive encyclopedia De expetendis et fugiendis rebus [On Seeking and Fleeing
Things], published by aldus Manutius in 1501.61 Typical of the blend-
ing of disciplinary interests in Venice, Valla the expert on philosophical
and mathematical texts held the chair of rhetoric at the city’s San Marco
school.
From the 16th to 17th centuries, scientific and mathematical ideas trav-
eled regularly between Venice and Padua, as during the years of Galileo’s
stay in the region.62 The influence of Paduan circles on the architect Pal-
ladio and for the development of proto-enlightenment libertinism have
recently been noted by scholars.63
Carnival in VeniceFrom the late Trecento to the late Quattrocento, the patriciate appropriated
the new movement of humanism and so established dominance over the
intellectual culture of Venice. Their works, primarily political or historical,
supported the prevailing political orthodoxy, not distant in its claims from
what modern scholars have called the “myth of Venice”: an assertion of
the uniqueness, justice, and benevolence of the Venetian state and the
cohesion, loyalty, and piety of Venetian citizens. When not pursuing
explicitly political themes, they often took up christian or philosophical
Aristotelica nel Veneto, 2 vols (Padua, 1983); and Giovanni Santinello, Tradizione e dissenso
nella filosofia veneta fra Rinascimento e modernità (Padua, 1991).
61 For whom see Gardenal et al., Giorgio Valla.
62 Maccagni, “le scienze nello studio di Padova e nel Veneto.” For Galileo in the Veneto,
see carugo, “l’insegnamento matematica”; Manlio Pastore Stocchi, “il periodo veneto di
Galileo Galilei,” in Storia della cultura veneta, vol. 4 (1984): Dalla Controriforma alla fine
della Repubblica. Il Seicento, part 2, pp. 37–66; and the essays in Galileo Galilei e la cultura
veneziana: atti del convegno di studio promosso nell’ambito delle celebrazioni Galileiane
indette dall’Università degli Studi di Padova (1592–1992), Venezia, 18–20 Giugno 1992 (Venice,
1995). also relevant is the profile of Francesco Barozzi: Paul l. rose, “a Venetian Patron and
Mathematician of the Sixteenth century: Francesco Barozzi (1537–1604),” Studi veneziani
n.s. 1 (1977), 119–78.
63 Guiseppe Barbieri, Andrea Palladio e la cultura veneta del Rinascimento (rome,
1983); Tracy elizabeth cooper, Palladio’s Venice: Architecture and Society in a Renaissance
Republic (new haven, 2005); and Muir, Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance.