Ermolao or Hermolao Barbaro, also Hermolaus Barbarus (21 May 1454 – 14 June 1493), was an Italian Renaissance scholar.
Ermolao Barbaro was born in Venice, the son of Zaccaria Barbaro, and the grandson of Francesco Barbaro. He was also the uncle of Daniele Barbaro and Marcantonio Barbaro
Much of his early education was outside of Venice, accompanying his father who was an active politician and diplomat. He received further education in Verona with an uncle, also named Ermolao. In 1462 he was sent to Rome, where he studied under Pomponius Laetus and Theodorus Gaza. By 1468 he had returned to Verona, where Frederick III awarded him a laurel crown for his poetry.
He completed his education at the University of Padua, where he was appointed professor of philosophy there in 1477. Two years later he revisited Venice, but returned to Padua when the plague broke out in his native city.
Barbaro had an active political career, though he resented these duties as a distraction from his studies. In 1483 he was elected to the Senate of the Republic of Venice. He was twenty when he gave the funeral oration for Doge Nicholas Marcello. In 1486, he was sent to the court of the Duchy of Burgundy in Bruges. In 1488 he held the important civil post of ‘’Savio di Terrafirma’’. In 1489 he was appointed ambassador to Milan and in 1490 he was appointed Ambassador to Rome. In 1491, Pope Innocent VIII, nominated him to the office of Patriarch of Aquileia.