Baldassare Bonifacio was born at Crema, in the
Republic of Venice, on January 5, 1586, the son of Bonifacio Bonifacio, celebrated jurist and assessor, and of Paola Corniani, the daughter of Giovanni Francesco Corniani, likewise jurist and assessor. He studied
humanities at
Rovigo under the supervision of
Antonio Riccoboni and graduated in law at the
University of Padua at the age of eighteen. About two years later he was appointed professor of law at the college of
Rovigo, where he lectured on the
Institutes of Justinian. Sometime within the next five years, Bonifacio accompanied Count Girolamo di Porzia,
bishop of Adria and papal
nuncio, to Germany as a private secretary. Upon his return to the Republic of Venice he was made
archpriest of Rovigo. In 1619 Bonifacio was nominated as professor of
classics at the University of Padua but turned down the position. In the next year the
Venetian Senate offered him the position of professor of civil law at the Academy of Nobles in Venice. At the time of his acceptance he was in Rome. Before his return
Pope Urban VIII, upon the recommendation of the Venetian Senate, named him to the
bishopric of Hierapetra and Sitia on the Greek island of
Crete. Bonifacio declined the post for health and safety concerns. As partial compensation, the pope appointed him
archdeacon of
Treviso, in which office he served four successive bishops (Francesco Giustiniani,
Vincenzo Giustiniani, Silvestro Morosini and
Marco Morosini). In 1636, the Republic of Venice created a new college for the sons of the nobility at Padua. By public decree, it named Bonifacio
dean, at a generous stipend, of the new institution which was formally opened in 1637. He directed the college for only a short time, after which he was succeeded by the Milanese scholar
Francesco Bernardino Ferrari. Shortly afterwards he founded the Accademia dei Solleciti in Treviso. In 1653, he was appointed bishop of Koper, a position he held until his death. He died on 17 November 1659, aged 75, and was buried in his cathedral church, close by the altar of the Epiphany (which he had privately contributed). Bonifacio was an erudite and prolific author (
scribacissimus homo, according to
Morhof,
Polyhistor, 1732, p. 1070). He is best known by his
Historia Ludicra, a collection of miscellaneous notes on a vast variety of subjects originally published in Venice in 1652. The first edition of the work had no index or table, and its contents were consequently almost inaccessible. Jean Mommart supplied this want in his edition of 1656, to which he has prefixed a full table and added a copious index. Bonifacio published also a collection of Latin poems (1619) and an essay on ancient
Roman historiography,
De Romanæ Historiae Scriptoribus excerpta ex Bodino Vossio et aliis, Venice, 1627. A list of his works is given at the end of the second edition of the
Historia Ludrica (Bruxelles, 1656). Throughout his life Bonifacio maintained friendly relationships with numerous intellectuals of his day and was a member of several academies (
Umoristi,
Incogniti, Olimpici, Filarmonici). He was a close friend of the learned
Augustinian monk Angelico Aprosio. Bonifacio was a regular attendee of
Sara Copia Sullam's literary
salon. Sara answered this attack with a
Manifesto published the same year, in which she defended herself from Bonifacio's accusation. == Works ==