The House of Cornaro or Corner was a patrician family in the Republic of Venice which included many doges and other high officials. The name Corner, originally from the Venetian language, was adopted in the eighteenth century. The older standard Italian Cornaro is no longer common in Italian sources referring to earlier members of the family, but remains so in English.
History
[edit]The family and name Cornaro are said to descend from the gens Cornelia, a patrician family of Ancient Rome. The Cornari were among the twelve tribunal families of the Republic of Venice and provided founding members of the Great Council in 1172. In the 14th century, the family separated into two distinct branches, Cornaro of the Great House and Cornaro Piscopia.[1] The latter name derived from the 1363 grant of the fief of Piscopia in the Kingdom of Cyprus to Federico Cornaro.[2]
When Caterina Cornaro married king James II of Cyprus in 1468, the Lusignan royal arms were added to the family arms party per pale. They had eight palaces on the Grand Canal, Venice at different times, including Ca' Corner and what is now the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore. They commissioned many famous monuments and works of art, including Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa in the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome (1652). In Greece the islands of Scarpanto and Kasos were their fiefs from the early 14th century[3] until the Ottoman conquest.[1]
Sugar trade
[edit]The Cornaro Piscopias ran a large sugar plantation in their fief near Episcopi in Venetian Cyprus, in which they exploited slaves of Syrian or Arab origin or local serfs. Sugar was transformed in-house with a large copper boiler made in Venice that the family paid hefty sums to maintain and operate. They exported sugarloaves and powdered sugar to Europe. The Cornaros were often in conflict with their neighbors over the use and handling of water.[4]
Members
[edit]- Felicia Cornaro (died 1111), dogaressa of Venice
- Giovanni Cornaro (fl.β1238β1291), diplomat
- Andrea Cornaro (died 1323), Margrave of Bodonitsa
- Marco Cornaro (c.1286β1368), doge 1365β68
- Federico Cornaro (died 1382), merchant and politician, founder of the Piscopia plantation
- Pietro Cornaro (died in 1387 or 1388), Lord of Argos and Nauplia from 1377
- Marco Cornaro (1406β1479), trader, patrician, diplomat
- Luigi Cornaro (c.1464β1566), who wrote treatises on dieting
- Giorgio Cornaro (1452β1527), brother of Caterina Cornaro
- Caterina Cornaro (1454β1510), Queen of Cyprus from 1474 to 1489
- Francesco Cornaro (1476β1543), Cardinal from 1527
- Marco Cornaro (1482β1524), cardinal from 1522
- Andrea Cornaro (cardinal) (1511β1551), Italian Roman Catholic bishop of Brescia, and later cardinal
- Giorgio Cornaro (1524β1578), Italian Roman Catholic Bishop of Treviso
- Federico Cornaro (1531β1590), Italian Roman Catholic Cardinal-Priest of Santo Stefano al Monte Celio
- Luigi Cornaro (cardinal), Italian Roman Catholic cardinal and Archbishop of Zadar
- Andrea Cornaro (historian) (1547βc.1616), Venetian aristocrat, historian and author
- Vitsentzos Kornaros (1553β1614), Cretan poet
- Marco Cornaro (1557β1625), Italian Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Padua
- Cardinal Federico Baldissera Bartolomeo Cornaro (1579β1653), Patriarch of Venice 1631β44
- Giovanni I Cornaro (1551β1629), doge from 1624
- Marco Antonio Cornaro (1583β1639), Italian Roman Catholic Bishop of Padua
- Francesco Corner (1585β1656), doge in 1656
- Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646β1684), first woman to get a Doctor of Philosophy degree (from the University of Padua in 1678)
- Giovanni II Cornaro (1647β1722), doge from 1709
- Giorgio Cornaro (cardinal) (1658β1722), cardinal from 1697
- Laura Cornaro (d.1739), dogaressa of Venice, by marriage to the Doge Giovanni II Cornaro
- Giovanni Cornaro (1720β1789), cardinal from 1778
References
[edit]- ^ a b Cornaro, Luigi; Addison, Joseph; Bacon, Francis; Temple, William (1903). "Appendix: A Short History of the Cornaro Family; Some Account of Eminent Cornaros; A Eulogy upon Louis Cornaro; The Villas Erected by Louis Cornaro". The art of living long; a new and improved English version of the treatise by the celebrated Venetian centenarian, Louis Cornaro, with essays. Milwaukee: W. F. Butler. pp. 157β207. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ Rogge, Sabine; GrΓΌnbart, Michael (2015). Medieval Cyprus: a Place of Cultural Encounter. Waxmann Verlag. p. 152. ISBN 9783830983606. Retrieved 7 June 2019.; Konnari, Angel Nicolaou; Schabel, Chris (2015). Lemesos: A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 252. ISBN 9781443884624. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
- ^ "ToposText".
- ^ Verlinden, Charles (1970). "The Transfer of Colonial Techniques from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic". The beginning of Modern Colonization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 19-21.
