Gregorio Correr (Corraro) (1409 – 1464) was an Italian humanist and ecclesiastic from

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. In the last year of his life he was elected

Patriarch of Venice The Patriarch of Venice (; ) is the ordinary of the Patriarchate of Venice. The bishop is one of only four patriarchs in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. The other three are the Patriarch of Lisbon, the Patriarch of the East Indies an ...

Life

He was born into a patrician family of Venice; Antonio Correr was his uncle. As a youth he studied in the school of Vittorino da Feltre in

Mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...

Correr was created protonotary apostolic by Pope Eugenius IV, a relation. He went with the Curia to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, where he encountered the humanist circle of Biondo Flavio. He corresponded with Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger. He then served as secretary to his uncle Antonio at the Council of Basle. From 1448 he was an abbot at the Basilica of San Zeno, Verona. There he received the visit of another pupil of Vittorino, Iacopo da San Cassiano. He commissioned the celebrated San Zeno Altarpiece from

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, ; ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian Renaissance painter, a student of Ancient Rome, Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with Perspective (graphical), pe ...

. He was nominated as bishop of Padua in 1459, but lost out to Pietro Barbo when

Pope Pius II Pope Pius II (, ), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini (; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August 1458 to his death in 1464. Aeneas Silvius was an author, diplomat, ...

refused to accept the Venetian Senate's choice.

Works

There is a

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

of Correr's works. Around 1428 he wrote a Latin tragedy, ''Progne'', based on the story of

Procne Procne (; , ''Próknē'' ) or Progne is a minor figure in Greek mythology. She was an Athens, Athenian princess as the elder daughter of a king of Athens named Pandion I, Pandion. Procne was married to the king of Thrace, Tereus, who instead lu ...

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

, and the play ''

Thyestes In Greek mythology, Thyestes (pronounced , , ) was a king of Olympia. Thyestes and his brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia. They took refuge ...

'' by

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca ...

. He wrote also seven satires as a pupil in Mantua, and poetry, as he mentioned in correspondence with Cecilia Gonzaga. He wrote about 60 fables, and also a biography of Antonio

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Correr, Gregorio Patriarchs of Venice Italian Renaissance humanists 1409 births 1464 deaths Italian dramatists and playwrights Gregorio 15th-century Venetian writers