Bernardo de' Rossi

Bernardo de' Rossi (26 August 1468 – 28 June 1527) was an Italian bishop and patron of the arts.

The son of a feudal family of the area of Parma, at a young age he received the archdiaconate of Padua and the Abbey of St. Crisogonus in Zadar. In 1488, thanks to the support of the Republic of Venice, he became Bishop of Belluno. In 1499 he was appointed as bishop of Treviso. Here he hold a small court, featuring artists such as Lorenzo Lotto, who painter a portrait of him around 1505.

In 1503, de' Rossi entered in conflict with the Venetian podestà of Treviso, Girolamo Contarini. In September of that year a plot set against him by the Onigo family failed as it was discovered before its application.

In 1509, after further controversies with the Venetian authorities, he was forced to leave the diocese, and moved to Rome (1510). In 1522 he returned to the ancestral fied of San Secondo Parmense, fighting against members of his family. He eventually clashed against the condottiero Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, who had come to help his sister-in-law Bianca Riario, the wife of Troilo I de' Rossi. Bernardo de' Rossi fled to Parma in 1524, and died a few years later, perhaps poisoned by his nephews Giovan Girlamo and Bertrando.

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