History
Barbaro family tradition claims they were descended the Roman gens Catellia and more distantly from the Fabii. Like other Venetian patrician families, they also claimed descent from Roman families with similar names, in this case Ahenobarbus. Tradition also says they fled to Istria to avoid persecution during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. The family’s wealth came from the salt trade.
Records show the family moved from Pula to Trieste in 706 and then to Venice in 868.< At this time the family's surname was Magadesi. (Alternate spellings were Magadezzi and Maghadesi.)
The first recorded member of the family was Paolo Magadesi, who was Procurator of San Marco. Charles Yriarte says this occurred when Pietro Tradonico was Doge of Venice (836-864), though most sources say the family did not live in Venice until later. An Antonio Magadesi was also Procurator of San Marco in 968. and Johannes Magadesi was a presbyter of the Church of San Zorzi in 982 and has also been cited as the first member of the Barbaro family that we have a historical record of.
Recorded genealogy of the Barbaro family begins in 1121 with Marco, naval commander and creator of the modern coat of arms, who changed his surname name from Magadesi to Barbaro.
The Barbaro family was recognized as one of the leading families (Ottomati) of the Republic of Venice in the year 992. In 1297, the Maggior Consiglio (Senate of Venice) recognized the family as patricians The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia confirmed the family status as Patricians as part of a series of resolutions issued from 1818-1821. This status was officially recorded again in Venice in 1891 for all members of the family.
In the sixteenth century there was a division between those Venetian families who opposed or favored the influence of the Holy See. The latter opposed the law that barred holders of church offices from also holding political appointments in Venice. The Barbaro family was part of this "papalist" group, along with the Badoer, Corner, Emo, Foscari, Grimani, and Pisani families. These families also acted as patrons of Battista Franco, Palladio, Francesco Salviati, Michele Sanmicheli, Giovanni da Udine, and Federico Zuccari.
The Barbaro family fortunes diminished after Napoleon's defeat of Venice and they had to turn most of the Palazzi Barbaro into apartments. By the time art critic John Ruskin visited Venice in 1851 all that was left of the once powerful Barbaro family were a pair of elderly brothers living in poverty in the garret of the Palazzo Barbaro.
Ruskin wrote that the poverty of these last members of the Barbaro family was justice for the family having rebuilt the Church of Santa Maria Zobenigo as a monument to themselves, which Ruskin called “a manifestation of insolent atheism”. The last of the family died in the mid-nineteenth century.
Some branches of the family survived outside Venice. The most prominent was in Malta, but there were also branches in Galacia and other parts of Italy.
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