Biographical overview
1595: Giacomo Contarini (the bequest took effect only in 1713, upon the extinction of the family; 175 manuscripts and 1,500 printed works.)
Giacomo Contarini was born in Nicosia in 1536. A collector of artworks and books, he made his residence a meeting place for leading intellectuals of his time, including Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, Daniele Barbaro, and Massimo Margunio, as well as artists such as Andrea Palladio, Francesco Bassano, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and Palma il Giovane. He maintained a particularly close relationship with Galileo Galilei.
The bequest
Upon his death in 1595, Contarini left his library to his “beloved homeland”. The Republic of Venice assigned it to the Library of St Mark. The bequest took effect only in 1713, upon the extinction of the Contarini family branch of San Samuele Bertuzzi. In 1714, the Librarian of the Library of St Mark, Girolamo Venier, commissioned Marcantonio Maderò to compile a catalogue of the collection, which was presented to the Senate of the Republic on 19 February 1715.
Extent and composition
The inventory consists of a double alphabetical list (by first name and by surname) of printed books, “scholastic manuscripts”, papers, drawings, and antiquities (paintings, statues, and objects). The collection includes 175 manuscripts—mainly in Italian and Latin, but also including some Greek manuscripts, one Oriental manuscript, and one French manuscript—and approximately 1,500 printed works. Giacomo Contarini’s interests were wide-ranging, spanning art, philosophy, architecture, mathematics, and literature. Literature is particularly well represented, both by codices of classical authors such as Homer and by numerous copies of Dante’s Divine Comedy with commentaries. The collection also contains Venetian chronicles, legal texts, and works on astronomy, physics, optics, military technology, and fortifications. Among the most noteworthy manuscripts are: Gr. VII, 3 (= 546): Oracles attributed to Leo the Wise (16th cent.); Lat. Z. 400 (= 2028): Andrea Dandolo, Chronicon Venetum (14th cent.); It. Z. 34 (= 4772): Giovanni Villani, Cronaca (14th cent.).
Inventories and catalogues
Inventory: Lat. XIV, 21 (= 4553), Marcantonio Maderò, Catasticum librorum tam editorum quam manuscriptorum Ser. Reipublicae legatorum … Jacobo Contareno, duplici indice exaratum, 1714.
Further reading
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Marino Zorzi, La Libreria di San Marco, Venice, Mondadori, 1987, pp. 184–187.
