Daniele Barbaro

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Daniele Barbaro, by Paolo Veronese

Daniele Barbaro (Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro; Barbarigo, Barberigo: the -igo suffix is typically Venetian; 1513-70) was an Italian translator of, and commentator on, Vitruvius.

Born in Venice, Barbaro studied philosophy, mathematics, and optics at the University of Padua.

His brother was Marcantonio Barbaro. Together they built the Villa Barbaro.

Barbaro had a significant political career, serving the Venetian Government as ambassador to London, patriarch of Aquileia, and representative of the Venetian Republic at the Council of Trent (1561).

Daniele Barbaro was in 1557 elected coadjutor to the Patriarch of Aquileia and translator of Vitruvius, Giovanni Grimani.

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 (1508-1580), Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) and Torquato Tasso (1544-1595). His works include: an edition of the commentaries on Aristotle's Rhetoric by his great-uncle Ermolao Barbaro (Venice, 1544); an edition of Ermolao Barbaro's Compendium scientiae naturalis (Venice, 1545); a translation with extended commentary of the Dieci libri dell'architettura di M. Vitruvio (Ten books of architecture by M. Vitruvius, Venice, 1556), which he later published in a Latin edition (M. Vitruvii de architectura, Venice, 1567); an important treatise on the science of painting, La pratica della perspettiva (The practice of perspective, Venice, 1569); and an unpublished and unfinished treatise on the construction of sundials (De Horologiis describendis libellus, Venice, Bibl. 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] References

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.