GIUSTINIANI, the name of a prominent Italian family which originally belonged to Venice, but established itself sub sequently in Genoa also, and at various times had representatives in Naples, Corsica and several of the islands of the Archipelago.
In the Venetian line the following are most worthy of mention : I. LORENZO (138o-1456), the Laurentius Justinianus of the Roman calendar, entered the congregation of the canons of St. George in Alga, and in 1433 became general of that order. About the same time he was made by Eugenius IV. bishop of Venice; and on the removal of the patriarchate from Grado to Venice by Nicholas V. in 1451, he was promoted to that dignity, which he held for fourteen years. He died on Jan. 8, 1456, and was canon ized by Alexander VIII., his festival being kept on Sept. 5. The best edition of his works is that of the Benedictine, P. N. A. Gius tiniani (Venice, 2 vols., 1751).
2. LEONARDO (1388-1446), brother of the preceding, was for years a senator of Venice, and in 1443 was chosen procurator of St. Mark. He translated into Italian Plutarch's Lives of Cinna and Lucullus, and was the author of some poetical pieces, amatory and religious—strambotti and canzonetti—as well as of rhetorical prose compositions. The popular songs set to music by him be came known as Giustiniani. (See Poesie inedite di Leonardo Giustiniani, ed. Wiese [Bologna, 1883].) 3. BERNARDO (1408-1489), son of Leonardo, entered the Venetian senate, and served on diplomatic missions to France and Rome, and about 1485 became one of the Council of Ten. He wrote a history of Venice, De origine urbis Venetarum rebusque ab ipsa gestis historia (1492 ; Ital. trans. • It is to be found in vol. i. of the Thesaurus of Graevius.
Of the Genoese branch of the family the most prominent mem bers were the following:— 5. AGOSTINO (1470--1 S36) was born at Genoa, and after joining the Dominicans in 1487, studied Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic, and in 1514 began the preparation of a polyglot edition of the Bible. As bishop of Nebbio, Corsica, he took part in the earlier sittings of the Lateran council (1516-17), but, in con sequence of party complications, withdrew to his diocese, and ultimately to France, where he became a pensioner of Francis I., and was the first to occupy a chair of Hebrew and Arabic in the University of Paris. He became acquainted with Erasmus and More and returned to Nebbio, about 1522. He bequeathed his fine library to the republic of Genoa. Of his projected polyglot only the Psalter was published (Psalterium Hebraeum, Graecum, Arabicum, et Chaldaicum, Genoa, 1616). Besides the Hebrew text, the LXX. translation, the Chaldee paraphrase and an Arabic version, it contains the Vulgate translation, a new Latin trans lation by the editor, a Latin translation of the Chaldee and a collection of scholia. Guistiniani printed 2,000 copies at his own expense, including 5o in vellum for presentation to the sovereigns of Europe and Asia. Besides an edition of Job, containing the original text, the Vulgate and a new translation, he published a Latin version of the Morels Nevochim of Maimonides (Director dubitantium aut perplexorum, 152o), and also edited in Latin the Aureus libellus of Aeneas Platonicus, and the Timaeus of Chalcidius. His annals of Genoa (Castigatissimi annali di Genova) were published posthumously in 6. POMPEIO (1569-1616), a native of Corsica, who served under Alessandro Farnese and the marquis of Spinola in the Low Countries, where he lost an arm, and was known by the sobriquet Bras de Fer. He defended Crete against the Turks, and sub sequently was killed at Friuli. He left in Italian a personal narrative of the war in Flanders, repeatedly published in Latin (Bellum Belgicum, Antwerp, 1609).