Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro was an Italian Catholic and humanist patriarch, a scholar of philosophy, mathematics and optics. He is best known as a translator and commentator of the treatise De architectura by Marco Vitruvio Pollione and for the treatise: "The practice of perspectives".
His studies on the perspectives and applications of the darkroom were important, where he used a diaphragm to improve the rendering of the image. A cultured man with wide interests, he was a friend of Andrea Palladio, Torquato Tasso and Pietro Bembo. He commissioned many works to Palladio Villa Barbaro in Maser and to Paolo Veronese, including two of his portraits.
Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro or Barbarus was the son of Francesco di Daniele Barbaro and Elena Pisani, daughter of the banker Alvise Pisani and Cecilia Giustinian. His younger brother was the ambassador Marcantonio Barbaro. Barbaro studied philosophy, mathematics and optics at the University of Padua. He was ambassador of the Serenissima to the court of Edward VI in London, from August 1549 to February 1551, and as a representative of Venice at the Council of Trent.
Grandson of the Patriarch of Aquileia Giovanni Grimani, he was his co-judge in the patriarchal headquarters of Aquileia. On December 17, 1550 he was promoted to a consistory to the "elected" patriarch of Aquileia (coadjutor), with the right of future succession, but never assumed the leadership of the patriarchate because he died before his uncle. At the time, this charge was almost a family matter for the Barbarians, in fact four of Barbaro's patriarchs of Aquileia were between 1491 and 1622.
He was perhaps appointed cardinal in pectore by Pope Pius IV in the consistory of 26 February 1561 and never published. Only the Grimani, with whom they were related, occupied patriarchy several times (as many as six). He participated in various sessions of the Council of Trent from January 14, 1562 until its closure in 1563.