Andrea Navagero (1483 – 8 May 1529), known as Andreas Naugerius in Latin, was a Venetian diplomat and writer. Born to a wealthy family, he gained entry to the Great Council of Venice at the age of twenty, five years younger than was normal at the time. He dedicated himself to editing classical Latin manuscripts at the Aldine Press printing office, garnering a reputation as a scholar and a skilled writer. In 1515, at the request of the general Bartolomeo d'Alviano, he was appointed the caretaker of a library containing the collection of the scholar Bessarion; this library would later become the Biblioteca Marciana. At the same time, he was designated official historian of the Republic of Venice.
As a result of his high standing in Venetian scholarly circles, Navagero was named the Venetian ambassador to Spain in 1523 and navigated the volatile diplomatic climate caused by the conflict between Charles Vthe Holy Roman emperor and king of Spainand King Francis I of France. During this time, he provided many highly detailed descriptions of Spanish cities and landmarks. He was imprisoned by Charles in December 1526, but released in a prisoner exchange the following April; before returning home to Venice, he traveled to Paris to acquaint himself with the royal court of Francis.
By the time Navagero arrived back in Venice in September 1528, he had grown disillusioned with politics and wished to return to editing manuscripts and cultivating his prized gardens. Much to his dismay, he was appointed ambassador to France in January 1529. After traveling through the Alps to meet Francis I in Blois, he fell gravely ill and died on 8 May 1529.
Early life and education Navagero was born in 1483 to the wealthy Navagero family. The Navagero family were among the younger , or "new houses", of the Venetian nobility, as opposed to the more established "old houses". His father was Bernardo Navagero, a captain in the Venetian navy, and his mother was Lucrezia Bolani. He also had two brothers, Bartolomeo and Pietro. The geographer and writer Giovanni Battista Ramusio was Navagero's distant cousin; Navagero would become one of Ramusio's closest friends.
Navagero was first educated by private tutors before attending the University of Padua; he attended the university in at least the years 1501 and 1502. Pietro Pompanazzi tutored him in philosophy; he was also taught Latin by Marcantonio Sabellico and Greek by Marcus Musurus. Navagero followed the humanist school of thought, which, during the Renaissance, was centered on the study of classical philosophy, literature, and history. He also subscribed to Epicureanism, a hedonistic philosophy encouraging the pursuit of mental pleasures, such as peace of mind and freedom from pain and fear. This manifested in his desire to remain constantly in his gardens, which he loved deeply. While in Rome in 1516, Navagero attended Roman academy meetings, which were convivial social gatherings of Italy's learned men of the time.
Career In 1504, Navagero gained entry to the chief political assembly of Venice, the Great Council, at the age of twenty, five years younger than the typical age at the time. Although members of Venice's noble families were automatically granted a seat in the Great Council at the age of 25, it was possible to gain early admission through a yearly lottery among the younger noblemen. Many of his contemporaries believed that he had the potential to become a successful politician. He delivered a funeral oration for Catherine Cornaro, a Venetian and the final queen of Cyprus, after her death in Venice in 1510, though the content of this oration has not survived. At some point, Navagero took residence in a villa in Murano, where he maintained an impressive garden.
Despite his election to the Great Council, Navagero devoted much of his time to editing manuscripts of classical Latin works at the Aldine Press printing office, garnering a reputation as a scholar and a skilled writer. With the Aldine Press, he published editions of the works of the ancient Roman writers Cicero, Quintilian, and Virgil in 1514, Lucretius in 1515, Ovid in 1515 and 1516, and Terence in 1517. He was highly proficient in Latin and Greek and deeply knowledgeable about classical literature.
Navagero was also a prolific Latin poet, though he destroyed some of his own works as they did not meet his rigorous standards. In one instance, he cast some of his own poems into a fire after a reader compared them to Statius's , a work written in a "Silver Age" Latin style that Navagero personally disliked. In another, he destroyed multiple poems that he wrote in the heroic meter because he was not satisfied with their quality. Most of his surviving poems were composed while he was still a young man; the earliest, and the only one that appeared in print during his lifetime, was published in 1499, when he was sixteen. A collection of his Latin poems called the () was published posthumously in 1530; according to the preface, the texts were taken from rough drafts and copies that Navigero had circulated privately among his friends. Beyond the , he also produced Italian vernacular poetry, though he destroyed many of these works as well.
Military service and library administration
Navagero joined the ranks of the Venetian general Bartolomeo d'Alviano's army following the League of Cambrai's 1508 declaration of war against the Venetian Republic. He earned the admiration of Alviano for both his literary skill and bravery. He became a member of literary academy sponsored by Alviano at Pordenone, northeast of Venice, and among his works is a poem celebrating the birth of Alviano's son. In 1515, following Alviano's death in the siege of Brescia, Navagero delivered a widely praised funeral oration for the general, referencing Alviano's special fondness towards himself in particular, which lasted hours. Alviano left to the Venetian Republic a large sum of money, directing that the funds be used to construct a public library housing Greek scholar Bessarion's collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts; this library would later become the Biblioteca Marciana. He also requested that Navagero be appointed the manager of the library. As a result, the Venetian Senate designated Navagero both the manager of the collection and the official historian of the Republic, granting him a considerably large salary of 200 ducats a year. In becoming Venice's official historian, Navagero succeeded Sabellico, his former tutor.
In 1516, Navagero traveled to Rome alongside the humanist . They found lodging at the home of the author and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione and frequently toured the city; it was during such an excursion that Raphael depicted the two travelers in his 1516 work Portrait of Andrea Navagero and Agostino Beazzano. Following his return to Venice, Navagero was confronted by the challenge of organizing Bessarion's massive collection of valuable codices, which had been improperly stored in damp conditions since 1468. Additionally, the manuscripts were frequently borrowed from the library without being returned. In order to address these issues, Navagero enlisted the help of Ramusio to sort through the many works. Furthermore, the two successfully instituted a system of fines to ensure the timely return of the manuscripts. As the official historian of the Republic, Navagero was also tasked with continuing the history of Venice begun by Sabellico. Progress was slow, and although he produced a preliminary draft of ten books, he was dissatisfied with its quality and had it destroyed shortly before his death. The task was later taken up by his friend, Pietro Bembo. In 1521, his funeral oration for Doge Leonardo Loredan was widely praised and reinforced his high scholarly standing.
Ambassadorship to Spain Because of his prestigious reputation, Navagero, alongside the future doge Lorenzo Priuli, was appointed as the Venetian ambassador to Spain by Doge Antonio Grimani on 10 October 1523, replacing Gasparo Contarini. Navagero was tasked with negotiating the ratification of a truce between Spain and Venice, as Venice sought to protect its own territory from Spain's expansion in northern Italy. He was also instructed to avoid terms unfavorable to Venice's ally, France. Before traveling to Spain, Navagero agreed to covertly send Spanish reports regarding New World discoveries to Ramusio; in exchange, Ramusio would oversee the Bessarion library and Navagero's prized gardens in Murano and Selve, which he, in his own words, "[cared] for ... more than for anything else in this world".
After Navagero and Priuli departed Venice in July 1524, Priuli fell severely ill and was forced to spend three months in Parma; he later recovered and rejoined Navagero, who had advanced to Livorno. After the king of France, Francis I, was captured by the army of the Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain, Charles V, during the Battle of Pavia in February 1525, Navagero and Priuli received instructions to hasten their travel to Spain to negotiate the truce, as well as to broker Francis's release. After months of delay due to a plague outbreak in Genoa, Navagero and Priuli finally obtained naval passage to Barcelona. They were met with extreme storms on the water, killing Navagero's best horse and leading Navagero to proclaim that he had witnessed "mountains of water".
Following the journey, Navagero and Priuli traveled for four weeks from Barcelona to Toledo, the location of Charles V's court, and arrived on 11 June 1525. There, after a waiting period of three weeks outside of the city walls, they were met by the viceroy Diego Columbus and granted entry to the city. Columbus was accompanied by Baldassare Castiglione, with whom Navagero would spend much of his time in Spain. After the two ambassadors introduced themselves to Charles V, they were later informed by Charles's advisor Mercurino di Gattinara that the king viewed Italy as "his property" and recommended that Venice pay the emperor 120,000 ducats to ensure peace in the region. Priuli returned to Venice, as had been previously planned, while Navagero settled in Toledo, supplying highly detailed descriptions of the city to Ramusio and translating Decades of the New World, written by his newfound friend Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, into Italian. Navagero would eventually acquire numerous other manuscripts from d'Anghiera.
Navagero continued to lobby Charles V for the release of Francis I, who at that time was severely ill and imprisoned in Madrid. In return, Charles demanded control of Burgundy and northern Italy; France acquiesced, ending the negotiations and allowing the royal court to move to Seville, a development which pleased Navagero. Enamored by the city, he enthusiastically described to Ramusio the city's landmarks, including the Alcázar, the Seville harbor, and the Giralda. While in Seville, he was also tasked with gathering information on commerce between Spain and the New World by the Venetian Senate; he later provided these details to Ramusio, who included them in his compendium . While in Toledo, Navagero's sources of information included the New Spanish treasurer Diego de Soto, the conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez, the sailor Estêvão Gomes, and the historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo.