Bernardo Bembo

He studied philosophy at the University of Padua, earning a doctorate of arts under the guidance of Gaetano da Thiene on 10 November 1455.

After a three-year stay at the Burgundian court, he was appointed ambassador to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, on 23 August 1474.

[1] In this capacity, he promised Lorenzo de' Medici to do his best to procure the return of the bones of Dante Alighieri to Florence.

[5] He had returned to Venice by early 1485, when he was elected one of four ambassadors to pay homage to Pope Innocent VIII.

[1] He served a first term as avogadore di comun (public prosecutor) in 1486, a role he reprised another five times (1494–1495, 1500, 1504–1505, 1509–1510, 1512–1513).

[5] He returned to Rome in November 1487 as the Venetian representative at the papal arbitration of the Republic's dispute with Sigismund of Austria, which had led to the brief War of Rovereto in the Tyrol.

He conveyed to the council the offer of Tristano Savorgnan to poison Charles VIII of France, then invading Italy.

From 10 April 1502 until mid-1503 he was podestà of Verona, in conjunction with which he was also to act as ambassador to King Louis XII of France, who was invading Italy.

He describes the triumphal entry of Louis XII in Milan in a letter to Marino Sanuto the Younger.

[1] On 11 November 1503, Bembo was selected for the embassy of congratulation to Pope Julius II on his election, but for political reasons related to the downfall of Cesare Borgia it did not set out until March 1505.

He left to take up the post of provveditore of fodder, and the Council elected him to its zonta (extraordinary commission) on 8 August.

With Marino Giustinian and Alvise Gradenigo, he proposed the review of Antonio Grimani's exile that brought back the military to Venice at a time of need.

He also sat on the commission that tried the Paduans for rebellion, and launched the trial of Angelo Trevisan before the Great Council on 20 February 1510.

[1] The failure in December 1514 of his son's mission on behalf of Pope Leo X to Venice seems to have dispirited Bembo.

[1] Bembo corresponded with Lorenzo de' Medici, Cristoforo Landino, Dante III Alighieri, Ermolao Barbaro, Pietro Barozzi, Baldassarre Castiglione, Marsilio Ficino, Francesco Filelfo, Lauro Quirini, Marcantonio Sabellico, Antonio Vinciguerra and Jacopo Zeno.

[6] Sanuto praises him as "most learned, great in humanitas" and says that he continued to write until his last hour, always "well-composed and full of all erudition".