590 margaret l. king
prepared students for entry to the university of Padua for studies in medi-
cine, science, and philosophy. The audience included some well-educated
members of the citizen class, but even more the intellectual elite of the
patriciate, as well as visitors from abroad. By the end of the 15th century,
the chair of philosophy was repeatedly held by members of the Venetian
patriciate.
in addition, Venetian humanist writers interested themselves in philo-
sophical discourse and wrote on philosophical themes. Bernardo Bembo,
for instance, corresponded with the Florentine Platonist Marsilio Ficino,58
while ermolao Barbaro the younger, who defended rhetoric over phi-
losophy in a debate with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, wrote com-
mentaries on aristotle’s Ethics and the Materia medica [Medical Works]
of dioscorides and translated the Paraphrases of Themistius from the
Greek.59 in the 16th century, the statesman Sebastiano erizzo (1525–85)
translated several dialogues of Plato, while the cardinal daniele Barbaro,
better known as a patron of arts and letters and the translator into italian
of the architectural work of Vitruvius, edited the commentaries on aris-
totle of his great-uncle ermolao Barbaro the younger and wrote a treatise
himself, left unfinished at his death, on sundials.60
Bruno nardi, “letteratura e cultura veneziana del Quattrocento,” in Vittore Branca, ed.,
Storia della civiltà veneziana, 3:181–203. in addition to the rialto school for philosophy,
two other public schools were founded in 1443 and 1460 for humanistic skills, intended for
cittadino boys preparing for secretarial careers, and advanced studies in rhetoric, for which
see especially nardi, “letteratura e cultura,” p. 189; and James B. ross, “Venetian Schools
and Teachers Fourteenth to early Sixteenth century: a Survey and a Study of Giovanni
Battista egnazio,” Renaissance Quarterly 29.4 (1976), 521–66. For schooling more generally,
including the many private masters and schools, see enrico Bertanza and Guiseppe dalla
Santa, Maestri, scuole e scolari in Venezia fino al 1500 (Vicenza, 1993); Gherardo ortalli,
Scuole, maestri e istruzione di base tra medioevo e Rinascimento: il caso veneziano (Vicenza,
1993); Manlio Pastore Stocchi, “Scuola e cultura umanistica fra due secoli,” in Storia
della cultura veneta, vol. 3 (1980): Dal primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento, part 1, pp.
93–121; and for the later period, see Baldo, Alunni, maestri; also the overviews in Gino
Benzoni, “le accademie e l’istruzione,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 4: Il Rinascimento. Politica e
cultura, ed. Tenenti and Tucci, pp. 789–816; and Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance
Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore, 1989), pp. 51–70. See also Grendler’s
contribution in the present volume.
58 For Bembo, see nella Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, umanista e politico veneziano
(Florence, 1985); and King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 335–39.
59 ermolao Barbaro the Younger was for decades the principal figure in Venetian
humanism of interest to Vittore Branca; see above, nn. 11, 19.
60 For Barbaro, see Pio Paschini, “daniele Barbaro letterato e prelate veneziano del
cinquecento,” Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia 16 (1962), 73–107; for both Barbaro and
erizzo, see logan, Culture and Society, passim. For philosophy in Venice and the Veneto
generally from the 16th to 17th centuries, see luigi oliveri, ed., Aristotelismo veneto e
scienza moderna: atti del 250 anno accademico del Centro per la Storia della Tradizione