Baldassarre Bonifacio

Baldassarre Bonifacio (5 January 1585 - 17 November 1659) was an Italian Catholic bishop, theologian, scholar and historian, known for his work De archivis liber singularis (1632), the first known treatise on the management of archives.[1]

Baldassarre Bonifacio
Bishop of Koper
Memorial plaque of Msgr. Baldassarre Bonifacio (Chiesa della Beata Vergine del Soccorso, Rovigo)
ChurchCatholic Church
DioceseDiocese of Koper
Appointed23 November 1653
Term ended17 November 1659
PredecessorPietro Morari
SuccessorFrancesco Zeno
Orders
Consecration30 November 1653 (Bishop)
by Marcantonio Bragadin
Personal details
Born(1585-02-05)5 February 1585
Crema
Died17 November 1659(1659-11-17) (aged 74)
Koper

Biography

The son of a lawyer of the same name, Bonifacio was born at Crema, in the Republic of Venice on January 5, 1585.[2] In his thirtieth year he went to study at Padua, and made such proficiency as to be created doctor of laws at the age of eighteen. About two years after he was appointed law professor in the college of Rovigo, where he first lectured on the Institutes of Justinian.

He afterwards accompanied Count Girolamo di Porzia, bishop of Adria and papal nuncio, to Germany as his private secretary, and was himself employed in some affairs of importance.[2] On his return to Venice, he had several preferments, and among others that of archpriest of Rovigo. In October 3, 1619, he was elected Greek and Latin professor at Padua, but declined accepting the office.

In 1620, he assisted at Venice, in the establishment of an academy for the education of the young nobility and gave lectures on the civil law. Pope Urban VIII bestowed on him the archdeaconry of Treviso, which he held, with the office of grand vicar of that diocese, under four successive bishops. He assisted also very essentially in founding a new academy at Padua for the Venetian nobility, in 1636, and was the first director or president of it, and founded a similar establishment at Treviso.

In 1653 he was appointed bishop of Koper, which he held until his death in 1659. He was a man of various learning, as appears by his Historia Ludicra (1656) 4º, a collection of singular narratives from authors of every description. He published also some Latin poems in 1619, 12mo and De Romanæ Historiae Scriptoribus excerpta ex Bodino Vossio et aliis, Venice, 1627, 4º.

Throughout his life Bonifacio maintained many friendly relationships with numerous intellectuals of his age and was a member of many academies (Umoristi, Incogniti, Olimpici, Filarmonici).[2]

Works
Title page of De Archiviis by Baldassarre Bonifacio, 1632

References
  1. Duchein, Michel (1992). "The History of European Archives and the Development of the Archival Profession in Europe". The American Archivist. 55 (1): 16. doi:10.17723/aarc.55.1.k17n44g856577888.
  2. Giorgetta Bonfiglio Dosio (2019). "Baldassarre Bonifacio". In Luciana Duranti; Patricia C. Franks (eds.). Encyclopedia of Archival Writers, 1515 - 2015. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 58. ISBN 9781538125809.

Bibliography


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