Francesco Barbaro (politician)

[11][5][12][13] Francesco Barbaro was a student at the University of Padua and studied under John of Ravenna, Gasparino Barzizza, Vittorino da Feltre, Guarino Veronese,[2][14] and Giovanni Conversini.

[12][2][16][17] In 1426 Barbaro was sent as a special envoy to the Papal Court to try to persuade Pope Martin V to ally with Venice against Milan.

[3][16] As governor of Brescia, from 1437 to 1440, Francesco Barbaro was able to reconcile the two rival factions of Avogadri and Martinenghi and he attained a great reputation in his defense of the city against the forces of the Duke of Milan, led by Niccolò Piccinino.

[20] In 1453, Barbaro's friend, Filippo da Rimini, serving as chancellor of Venetian Corfu, sent him an account of the fall of Constantinople.

[21] Barbaro engaged in research, collection and translation of ancient manuscripts[12][16] and served as a patron to George of Trebizond[16] and Flavio Biondo.

[15] Early in his career, he translated two of Plutarch’s Lives, those of Aristides and Cato from Greek texts into Latin[16] and dedicated them to his older brother Zaccaria.

[24] In 1513, the treatise was published in Paris by Badius Ascensius,[2][12] a transcription having been made in Verona by André Tiraqueau at the house of Guarino Veronese.

[2] Some of his letters and speeches were published for the first time in Brescia in 1728 under the title of Evangelistae Manelmi Vicentini Commentariorum de Obsidione Brixiae ann.