Bernardo Giustiniani
Giustiniani held numerous political offices in Venice over his long career, but he made his name as a diplomat.
A major theme of his embassies was the crusade against the Ottoman Empire, which he discussed with the emperor, the kings of Naples and France and popes Pius and Sixtus.
A learned man, Giustiniani translated classics, dabbled in poetry and wrote a history of Venice, as well as hagiography.
In Venice, he studied under Cristoforo de Scarpis in 1416 and 1418–1420 and learned Latin, Greek and moral philosophy from Francesco Filelfo in 1417–1419.
[1] On 5 January 1452, he was one of the ambassadors dispatched to Rome to greet Frederick III when he travelled to Italy to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
The fall of Constantinople to the Turks (1453) adversely affected his commercial interests and he opposed Venice's treaty with the sultan (1454).
His main purpose was to mediate an accord between the king and the rebellious prince of Taranto, Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo, an ally of Venice.
Their goal was to sound out Louis's policy regarding the Republic of Genoa and the Kingdom of Naples, convey to him Venice's neutrality in any case and discuss the anti-Ottoman crusade.
[6] Giustiniani was back in Venice in May 1462, in time to be one of the electors of Cristoforo Moro and appointed to the Council of Ten.
[1] On 29 October 1462, he left for Rome as ambassador to Pius II with the stated goal of securing an accord between the pope and Sigismondo Malatesta "for the peace and quiet of all Italy", but also to discuss the anti-Ottoman crusade.
Giustiniani urged the pope to bring an end to the Hungarian succession war so that Hungary could participate in the crusade.
They arrived in Rome at the end of November, their main goal being to resuscitate the anti-Ottoman crusade, which had gained urgency in Venice with the Ottomans threatening Friuli.
[3] In October 1473, Giustiniani and Marco Barbarigo were sent as ambassadors to the Duchy of Ferrara to deal with the counterfeiting of Venetian coins.
[10] On 21 December, he was present when the formal canonization process was opened for his uncle, Lorenzo Giustiniani, the first patriarch of Venice.
According to Pietro Giustiniani [de], he was the spokesman for war against the opposition of Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, but this is not supported by the writings of Domenico Malipiero.
In letters to Sixtus IV in January and March 1483, Giustiniani defended Venice's actions as a just war.
In January 1485, he appealed without success to Sixtus's successor, Innocent VIII, to lift the interdict against Venice.
He translated into Latin some lines of Homer and wrote his own Latin poem in ninety-seven lines, Pacis congratulatio inter Venetos et Philippum Mariam ad ducem Venetum, a celebration of the peace treaty of April 1428 ending the war between the Visconti and Venice.
[1] Not long after his forays into poetry, Giustiniani translated Isocrates' To Nikokles from Greek into Latin under the title Isocratis sermo de regno ad Nicoclem regem, dedicating it to Ludovico III Gonzaga.
[12] In the autumn of 1459, during the Diet of Mantua, he was in correspondence with Pope Pius II concerning the anti-Ottoman crusade and the canonization of Lorenzo Giustiniani.
[1] In 1472, at the end of his embassy to Sixtus IV, he received from the pope a letter, Dilecto filio Bernardo Iustiniano, praising his oratorical skills.
[1] His diplomatic correspondence concerning the War of Ferrara consists of:[1] Giustiniani wrote three works of history and biography: Vita beati Laurentii Iustiniani Venetiarum protopatriarchae (Life of Holy Lorenzo), De origine urbis Venetiarum rebusque gestis a Venetis libri XV (History of the Origin of Venice) and De divi Marci evangelistae vita, translatione, et sepulturae loco (Life of Saint Mark).
This contains a working draft heavily annotated in the margins and a fuller text prepared for publication by his son Lorenzo and Domenico Morosini.
[18] The final text, revised in accordance with his will by Benedetto Brugnoli and Giovanni Calfurnio [ru], was printed posthumously in 1492 by Bernardino Benali [it].
[19] De origine urbis Venetiarum covers the history of Venice from its foundation until the dogeship of Agnello Parteciaco (r. 811–827) in fifteen books.
Giustiniani relies on classical sources, as well as contemporary humanists Flavio Biondo and Lorenzo Valla.
The three short works cover Mark's life, the transfer of his relics to Venice and his continued presence there through his shrine church, where his bones are hidden.
The humanist Giovanni Jacopo Cane dedicated his De iniuriis et damno dato (Padua, 1472/3) and Tractatus repressalearum (Pavia, 1479) to him.
