7.palermino - The Roman Academy

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THE ROMAN ACADEMY, THE CATACOMBS AND THE CONSPIRACY OF 1468

Author(s): RICHARD J. PALERMINO
Source: Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, Vol. 18 (1980), pp. 117-155
Published by: GBPress- Gregorian Biblical Press
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RICHARD J. PALERMINO
THE ROMAN ACADEMY, THE CATACOMBS

AND THE CONSPIRACY OF 1468*
Summarium. — Academia Romana Iulii Pomponii Laeti saec. XV e mani

pulo virorum studio humanitatis dicatorum constabat, quem dein Summus
Pontifex Paulus II, ob Academiae inclinationem ad quoddam paganismi genus
et ad commune libertatis studium, dissolvit. Inde inter historiae cultores mul
tum disceptatum est tam de huius Academiae natura quam de gradu culpae,
quae Pauli II iram in Academicos provocaverat. Attamen hae disceptationes
persaepe in eo vitiantur, quod in probationibus incompletis vel male inter
pretatis innituntur. Dum in hoc articulo omnia argumenta valida quae nobis
praesto sunt colligere contenditur, suggeritur hoc accidere potuisse: ut Pau
lus II, vir austerus, certis causis ab Academicis illatis suas proprias rationes
addidisset, ut illum hominum inquieti animi manipulum disciplina contineret1.
The Roman Academy of Giulio Pomponio Leto was a casual as

sociation of fifteenth century humanists highly devoted to the study
of antiquity. It ran into grave difficulties in 1468 with Pope Paul II
over the supposed tendencies both in its thought and in its politics;
that is, paganism and republicanism2. Aside from any self-interest
the study of imprisoned scholars holds for modem historians, the
issue is of general interest as a question of whether the Academicians
met their fate because of any factor inherent in the pursuit of clas
sical letters and, more specifically as it concerns this paper, whether
they were guilty of the crimes for which they were imprisoned.
* This paper, now greatly expanded, was originally presented at the University
of Edinburgh in May 1975 under the title What Really Happened iti the Catacombs?
Paul II and the Roman Academy. The author is indebted to the University of Glasgow
for a travel grant to Rome which helped him to complete his research.
1 The following abbreviations are used:
CUL = Cambridge University, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 166.
De Rossi, L'accademia = G. B. De Rossi, L'accademia di Pomponio Leto e le sue me
morie scritte sulle pareti delle catacombe·. Bullettino di Ar
cheologia cristiana di Roma 1 (1890) 81-94.
De Rossi, La Roma = G. B. De Rossi, La Roma sotterranea cristiana I, Rome 1864.
Pasior = Ludwig Pastor, History of the Popes, F. I. Antrobus trans.,
IV2, London 1899.
SsR = Savignano sul Rubicone, Biblioteca Comunale, MS 68.
Vairani = T. A. Vairani, Cremonensium monumenta extantia, Rome 1778.
2 A fairly typical view in support of Paul, though more extreme in its language
than most, is that of Ludwig Pastor: « There was certainly some ground for the charges
brought against the Academicians of contempt for the Christian religion, its servants
and its precepts, of the worship of heathen divinities and the practice of the most
repulsive vices of ancient times»; Pastor IV, 44-45.
118 RICHARD J. PALERMINO
A step closer to the answer

questions is complicated by the
Academicians were involved in
bewilderment over this matter
the Academicians. This confusi
in what is, surprisingly, the on
itself exclusively to the Roman A
A. J. Dunston's recent article P
fact since Vladimiro Zabughin
scholarly comment has added r
of the Academy, has failed to c
will be seen, has always suffered
available at any time.
The traditional story of the c
and widely read contemporary
the implicated, Bartolommeo Pl
Liber de vita Christi ac omnium
so the story goes, out of animosi
for the pursuit of humane letter
Academicians as a pretext for
on the grounds of conspiracy aga
and tortured. Soon the charges
(In fact the Pope also announce
the name of the Academy wou
to repeated interrogation, they w
détention. One of their number died later due to the torture and
privation undergone while in prison. Beyond what Platina has said,
the curious circumstance might be mentioned that at least by the
time of the death of Paul II, they were ali able, with varying degrees
of success, to résumé their careers and former activities. Indeed,
under Paul's successor, Sixtus IV, the Academy was allowed to
re-establish itself.
In his account Platina had done a marvelous job of representing
to générations of readers an image of Paul II as the unqualified villain
of this scenario. From the outset there have been halting attempts
3 Journal of Religious History 7 (1973) 287-306. The devilishly immense number of

names by which an Italian humanist might be known is a problem of which many
unfamiliar with the field are unaware. In fact the more taken the humanists were
with classical times, the worse this situation could be as they made verbal play after
play off réminiscences of antiquity; in this the Roman Academy is a particular problem.
Not fully naming or attempting to distinguish between members of the Academy
before and after the conspiracy produces some real confusion on two levels: hence,
for Dunston, Pantagathus is indiscriminately allowed to both Capranica (p. 289) and
Ognibene (p. 292) or, looking to a différent sort of evidence, a traditional misiden
tification is repeated, the identification of Petreius as Pietro as Demetrio da Lucca
(p. 306); these and other places where Dunston and this author conflict are treated in
depth at the appropriate moment in the text which follows.
THE ROMAN ACADEMY, THE CATACOMBS ... 119
by apologists for Paul to reverse this rôle but it was no

nineteenth century that a break carne and then it was in
the discovery of grafìtti left in the catacombe by the A
dispatches of ambassadors from their posts in Rome.
evidence has been accepted in some sense by most schol
ably if not totally incriminating4. Short of Dunston and James
Wardrop, there does not seem to be a scholar who discounts it
entirely5. There are not many scholars who treat it with sufficient
care6.
The grafìtti were mostly found and reeorded by G. B. De Rossi
during his explorations of the catacombs of Rome7. They are re
produced in full, with some additions, at the end of this article.
These grafìtti are mostly undated and they are the result of visits
to the catacombs by members of both the First and the Second
Roman Académies. Aside from establishing that the Academicians
were the first systematic explorers of these passages since ancient
times, the grafìtti immediately raise queries over the import one is
to assign to references to Pomponio as « Pontifex Maximus » or to
« Romlanaruml pupi arum] delitie f-ciae] », « the delights of Roman
girls »8. It might also be wondered why, espeeially here, they failed
4 For the most important examples from what is essentially a very dated and
incomplete literature on this evidence see Pastor IV, 47-52; Henri de L'Epinois, Paul II
et Pomponius Laetus: Revue des questions historiques 1 (1866) 278-281; G. Lombroso,
Gli accademici nelle catacombe: Archivio della società Romana di storia patria 12
(1889) 215-239; A. Luzio and R. Renier, Il Platina e i Gonzaga: Giornale storico della
Letteratura italiana 13 (1889) 433; Ludwig Keller, Die romische Akademie und die
altchristlichen Katacomben im Zeitalter der Renaissance: Vortràge und Aufsàtze aus
der Comenius-Gesellschaft 7/m (1899) 1-38; Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the
Light of Recent Discoveries, London 1888, 10-11; Federico Patetta, Di una raccolta di
componimenti... in memoria di Alessandro Cinuzzi Senese ; Bullettino Senese di storia
patria 6 (1899) 160; Alessandro Paoli, I letterati a Roma e il potere temporale: Nuova
Antologia 21 (1872) 343-347 and 350-354; W. R. Brownlow and J. Spencer Northcote,
Roma Sotterranea, Compiled from the Works of De Rossi I, London 1879, 29-30; G. B.
De Rossi, L'accademia, pp. 81-94; Vladimiro Zabughin, Giulio Pomponio Leto, saggio
critico I, Rome 1909, 99 and Giacinto Gaida, ed. of Platina's Liber, in RIS2 3/i, Città
di Castello 1913-1932, 387 n. 3.
5 Dunston has already been mentioned; J. Wardrop, The Script of Humanism,
Oxford 1963, 20-22 and 30, incidentally this work would be best avoided as a source
for anything other than paleography as that relates to the Academy for which the
work is useful indeed; otherwise he adds nothing new short of error: putting Partenio
(p. 22) among those arrested or naming some of the chief members of the Academy
as Platina, Guazzelli and Demetrio da Lucca (p. 30) without realizing that Guazzelli is
Demetrio's surname. Vittorio Rossi and Eugenio Garin discount the new evidence
nearly as much as do Dunston and Wardrop; V. Rossi, Il quattrocento (Storia let
teraria d'Italia, 8), Milan 1945, 219 and E. Garin, Il quattrocento e l'Ariosto (Storia
della Letteratura italiana, 3), Milan 1966, 157-158. De Rossi, L'accademia, pp. 93-94
especially, is typical of the view in regards to the inscriptions that there was no
conspiracy but much to indicate that the Academicians were anti-Christian.
« The problem of dating the grafitti is the most abused in this regard; see n. 53
of this article for a recent example or two.
ι De Rossi, La Roma I, 3-6. De Rossi examines the significance of the inscriptions
in greater détail in his already cited article.
s Although a glance at a Latin dictionary will show that other, though less likely,
to use their Christian names. In sho

there? To reply to this question it
problem of what was the Roman Acad
especially in regard to the First Aca
The Roman Academy, or Accadem
as the Accademia Pomponiana due to
led by Pomponio and similarly as th
ence to the location of Pomponio's house where it often met10.
Basically it was a group of men dedicated to the study of classical
antiquity, mostly Roman. No direct statement on its exact nature
has been left behind by any of its members, so beyond what has
just been said, a great deal of controversy exists.
It might be noted that gatherings of men interested in classical
culture were not uncommon at this time as is well known. For
another Roman example Platina has left a record of apparent
gous proceedings at Cardinal Bessarion's house, meetings in
Platina and some members of the Roman Academy were partici
« On fréquent occasions the most learned men of ali the curia r
to the house of Bessarion ..., there they disputed among them
on things relating to the Latin tongue... ». Another remembr
of these proceedings spécifiés disputations of « bonae artes »
renderings of « pup. » exist, « girls » or « puparum » is De Rossi's choice and it has
been the one most generally accepted. Lanciani (as note 4; p. 11) has no justification
for making « pup. » out to be « dissolute women ».
9 For the earliest good general discussion of the Roman Academy see Girolamo
Tira boschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, 2nd rvd. ed. Modena 1787-1794, VI/i, 108
114. Another good « early » although unsystematic look at the Academy is Arnaldo
Della Torre, Paolo Marsi da Pescina: Contributo alla storia dell'Accademia Pompo
niana, Rocca S. Casciano 1903, 52-148. The most extensive study, despite Zabughin's
protestation that a history of the Academy is not his intent, continues to be Zabughin's
work on Pomponio where the discussion of the Academy often arises incidentally;
it is difficult but essential reading. Keller on the other hand has a lot of introductory
and contextual material but he is too often vague and lacking in evidence spécifie
to the Roman Academy itself. Beyond Dunston the most modem, general accounts of
the Academy and its members, accounts which unfortunately add little that is new
in interprétation or evidence, are brief notices in Garin (as note 5), 142-158; in Aulo
Greco, et al., Aspetti dell'umanesimo a Roma, Rome 1969, 58-72; and Gioacchino Papa
Relli, Callimacho Esperiente, Salerno 1971, 43-50, 59-65 and 75-77; a morte intense look
may be found in Flavio di Bernardo, Giannantonio Campano: Un Vescovo umanista
alla corte Pontificia, 1429-1477, Rome 1975, 209-223.
10 Raffaello Maffei (Volaterranus) gives us « sodalitas lititleratorum » with the
comment that Pomponio himself used to use that phrase: Commentarii urbanorum,
Basle 1530, fol. 14óv ; Jacopo Gherardi da Volterra records « sodalitas litteraria » : Dia
rium Romanum, in RIS2 23/i, ed. Enrico Carusi, Città di Castello 1904, 98 and 117.
Both men would have known Pomponio personally: Benedetto Falconcini, Vita di
Raffaello Maffei, Rome 1722, 10 and 18 and see Gherardi as just cited. Keller (as
note 4; p. 11 n. 4) observes that there is also a reference on a manuscript which reads
« POMPONI. LAETI. ET. SOCIETATIS. ESCVLINAI ». Della Torre (34) gives another
variant as « Religiosa et leteraria Sodalitas Viminalis » as does De Rossi (L'accademia,
p. 85) « Societas literatorum S. Victoris in Esquiliis »; these are the titles relevant to
our period.
11 Former quoted from Tiraboschi (VI/i, 107) and latter taken from Giambattista
Almadiano di Viterbo's panegyric on Platina in Diversorum achademicorum panegyrici
The Roman Academy at the least differed from other

and in this a goodly number of scholars agree, by purs
more zealous and extensive investigation of the classical
members, apparently mostly youths who were students of
changed their Christian Italian names to Latin ones ofte
sical connotations 12. Aside from this the only unconte
documentation of their activities refers to the Second Rom
and consists of the fact that in 1483 the Academicians celebrateci
Rome's « birthday » and that in the same year Emperor Frederic
granted to the Academy the authority to create « dottori » a
crown poets
In these circumstances our safest initial move might be to take
a close look at Pomponio, the leading figure in the Academy, and
then, having determined who his associâtes were, to turn to them.
While the logicai inconsistency of imputing the individuai beliefs of
members as being applicable to the society as a whole should be
avoided, surely the founder and most influential figure of the Acade
my, Pomponio, may be taken as some indication of the direction in
which it was heading.
His birthplace was Calabria M. He was an illegitimate child of
a noble family and an anecdote favored by historians tells us that
in reply to a request that he abandon his studies and return home
from Rome he tersely answered : « Pomponius Laetus cognatis et pro
pinquis suis salutem. Quod petitis fieri non potest. Valete »15.
It was around 1450 that he journeyed to Rome where he remained
until his death in 1498 allowing for nearly a year spent in Venice
just before the conspiracy, a trip to Germany in 1479-1480 and a
trip to Poland and Russia in 1482-1483. In this relative lack of move
ment Zabughin felt that he departed from the epoch « ... del vaga
bondaggio umanistico tramontava... » and demonstrates an early
in parentalia, in Platina, De honesta voluptate et valetudine..., Paris 1530, fol. 125r.

Niccolò Perotti left a list of the principal figures in Bessarion's Academy; of these
people only « Pomponio », « Lucillio » and « Rufo » would seem to have connections
with the Roman Academy: Cardinal Giovanni Mercati, Per la cronologia della vita e
degli scritti di Niccolò Perotti arcivescovo di Siponto (Studi e Testi, 44), Rome 1925,
77-80. Mercati (pp. 78-79) discounts identifying « Pierio Durantino » or « (Piero) Ben
tivoleo » with the Petreius of the conspiracy although he does intimate that the former
might be the « PERILLVS » of the catacombe. Perotti, by the way, was out of Rome
during the years roughly 1464-1472 but it must be kept in mind that he was an
associate of Pomponio and a collaborator with him in scholarly enterprises: Mercati,
pp. 55-76.
12 For this and for Pomponio as leader see letter of Sabellico to Mauroceno in
Pomponio Laeto, Opuscula, Paris? 1510, foli, xviv-xvif: Tiraboschi VI/i, 109-110; Fer
dinand Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadi Rom, Basel 1957: XIII, 273; and Vittorio Rossi,
Niccolò Lelio Cosmico: Giornale storico della Letteratura italiana 13 (1889) 103-104,
where Ariosto, Satira 7.58-63 is quoted on the name changing.
13 Gherardi (as note 10), p. 98 and Rossi, Il quattrocento (as note 5), p. 219.
m Rossi, Il quattrocento, p. 217.
15 Sabellico in Laeto, Opuscula, fol. xvf.
example of the scholar happy t

of the university and his own
ticularly before the 1470's, a life
He studied under Pietro Odi of Montopoli and Lorenzo Valla and
eventually succeeded to Valla's post as Professor of Rhetoric at the
University of Rome. Among his students may be numbered San
nazaro, Pontano, Platina, Sabellico, Alexander Farnese (the future
Paul III), Reuchlin and Peutinger 16.
As a scholar he maintained a high standard of textual criticism.
He had an interest in and edited, at least in part, the works of
Sallust, Varrò, Columella, Festus, Virgil, Martial and Lucan to name
a few17. He is of major importance in the history of humanist
script18, and he wrote such things as a guide to the ruins of Rome,
based very much on Biondo, and an Arte grammatica. He collected
ancient statues. He even displayed a goodly amount of érudition in
arriving at a date for the founding of Rome which, incidentally, the
Academicians celebrated on the 20th of Aprii as has already been
implied 19.
In regard to his love for antiquity Mandell Creighton, in his
History of the Papacy, tells us it was commonly related that:
He explored every nook and corner of old Rome, and stood gazing with rapt
attention on every relie of a bygone age : often, as he locked, his eyes fìlled with
tèars, and he wept at the thought of the grand old times. He despised the
age in which he lived and did not conceal his contempi for its barbarism.
He sneered at religion [per Sabellico], openly expressed his dislike of the
clergy and inveighed bitterly amongst his friends against the pride and luxury
of the Cardinale20.
Supposedly he had requested burial upon his death in an ancient

sarcophagus on the Appian way (as it happened, he was buried in
M R. Maffei (as note 10), fol. 246v, Zabughin (as note 4) I, pp. 2, 10, 193-201; Sabel
lico in Laeto, Opuscuta, foli. xvh-v; Rossi, II quattrocento, pp. 217-218 and Gregorovius
XIII, 273. Even in the early sixteenth century, for example, his former associâtes stili
testified to his memory as a man of « natura severa » : Marco Antonio Altieri, Li
Nuptiali, ed. Enrico Narducci, Rome 1873, 42; for this and future reference, Altieri
himself named Pomponio and Platina respectively « ... lo un preceptore, et l'altro per
fectissimo mio et singulare amico » (p. 30); the hook may he dated to the time of
Leo X (p. 118). Incidentally, by the late 1470's Pomponio's poverty seems to have
ameliorated; Zabughin II, 200. See Gaida (as note 4; p. 390 η. 1) on Pomponio's de
batable absence from Rome in 1472.
ι? Gregorovius XIII, 227; Pierre De Nolhac, La bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, Paris
1887, 199-200 and Zabughin I, 252.
18 Wardrop (as note 5), p. 20.
19 Zabughin II, pp. 133-134, 180, 186-192 and 208 and Rossi, Il quattrocento (as note
pp. 217-218.
20 Mandel Creighton, A History of the Papacy During the Period of the Reformation
III, London 1882, 41-42; Gregorovius (XIII, 173) provides more nineteenth century em
bellishments on taies about Pomponio's classicism. Sabellico is the basic source for
such Pomponiana to which might be appended the observation that Pomponio staged
plays by Plautus and Terence: Sabellico in Laeto, Opuscula, foli. xvir-v. Incidentally,
Bishop Giannantonio Campano, who often figures in this paper, also wept upon (first)
viewing the ruins of Rome: di Bernardo (as note 9), pp. 58-59.
a church, San Salvatore in Lauro)21. Although some of

stated, it does give an idea of the réputation he has e
is little doubt, however, that his interest in pagan antiq
intense than that of most of his contemporaries.
Humanist académies had little formai organization
partially explains the survival of so little documentation
bership23. Our most direct, although not necessarily
clue for the method of gathering members for the Rom
cornes from a hitherto unnoticed letter Pomponio wr
1480 while on his trip to Germany. He states that s
Nuremberg named Gottifredi has been very hospitable i
sheltering him since Pomponio's arrivai in that city
Gottifredi is travelling to Rome on business, Pompo
Platina receive him as Pomponio's own intimate who i
of Platina's friendship and « enrollment » in « nostram
He déclarés that Gottifredi is a man « eruditissimus » and « liberalis
simus » whom Pomponio can commend as though he were commen
ing himself24. Nothing similar to this letter survives.
The détermination of membership in the Roman Academy is
made yet more difficult by the fact that there is also no direct eviden
to prove that ali the members of the First Roman Academy, whic
seems to have been even more vaguely constituted than the Secon
were arrested although it is certain that ali the conspirators name
by Platina had an affiliation with the Academy even if their relation
with the Academy in 1468 were supposedly strained. Beyond thos
Academicians designated by the likes of Platina, there are no oth
sources which might be used with any degree of certainty to arri
at a more complete list of the membership of the First Academy.
Sources such as the grajitti may prove to be of indirect assistan
in this but great care must be taken to avoid the error of assuming
that any friends or associâtes of, for example, Platina are there
fore necessarily members of the Academy25.
21 Gregorovius XIII, 277 .
22 Zabughin {I, 38-58) discrédits the extremes of much of this sort of opinion; on
the source of some of it, see Garin (as note 5), pp. 146-148.
23 Lewis W. Spitz has similar complaints about the transalpine humanist académies
founded by Conrad Celtis: Conrad Celtis, The German Arch-Humanist, Cambridge,
Mass. 1957, 57-58.
24 The letter is in the collection discussed in Appendix III and exists in Latin and
Italian: Cod. Ottob. lat. 1982, foli. 45v-46r ; Platina's reply appears on fol. 46v. Zabughin
(I, 194) as already noted dates the trip to Nuremberg as I have given it.
25 The best example of this is presented by Platina's list of people who were
accustomed to dine at his house as recorded in his cookbook De honesta voluptate
written « ante captivitatem meam »; (as note 11; fol. 127r; see also Platina's letter to
Cardinal Iacopo Ammannati-Piccolomini in his letters appended to Plus II, Commen
tarli rerum memorabilium, Frankfurt 1614, 640). There Platina gives a group mention
to Pomponius, Septimius, Septumuleius Campanus, Cosmicus, Parthenius, Scaurus,
Fabius Narnienses, Antonius Ruffus and Demetrius as actually coming often to his
home (foli. 40™); throughout the work many more names are to be found of people
Essentially two major and contem

in the conspiracy of 1468 have c
helpful, add bits of information b
except that Agostino Patrizi adds
ing many of the others unnamed
left by Platina and the other com
member of the Second though seemingly not the First Roman
Academy in 146827. For future reference it might be best to keep
in mind that any of these names which appears among the grafitti
with whom Platina had, even regularly, dined or whose eating habits he knew; at
least as a « list » of Academy members this cookbook in its entirety must be used
with caution. Garin (as note 5; pp. 151-153) takes this list for a list of Academicians
without saying why; Paparelli (as note 9; p. 44) is a bit more cautious in doing nearly
the same thing. See also n. 26 of this paper for a spécifie example of possibly « jumping
the gun » in assigning membership although many of the names raised admittedly
deserve further study.
26 This « frater callimachi » is discussed in Appendix IV. Two other important
lists of those involved survive but these lists are not as clear as to who was a named
conspirator, just an associate of Pomponio or merely arrested in indirectly related
incidents such as the supposed approach of Luca de Tocio (refer to p. 130 of this
article). One is that of a recipient of Paul's patronage, Michael Canensi, and appears
in his De vita et pontificata Pauli secundi [1478], in RIS2 3/xvi, ed. Giuseppe Zippel,
Città di Castello 1904, 154-155. The other may be found in the above mentioned letter
of Agostino Patrizi to Antonio (?) Monelli in Zippel, p. 182. A good example of just
how confused the situation may become is provided by di Bernardo (as note 9; pp. 211
220) who chides Della Torre and Zabughin for leaving one Montano Cassiani out of
the First Academy but does not himself provide evidence that seems to me to establish
membership in the Academy; he cites a letter of Bishop Giannantonio Campano in
which Campano speaks of « Montanus noster»: G. Campano, Opera omnia, Epist. 5.13,
Fainborough, Eng. 1969 (a photofacsimile reprint of the 1495 Roman édition, ed. Michael
Ferno), fol. V as I found the citation. It might be noted that this same Montanus
appears in Platina's De hon. volupt. as « Montanus » who often invited Platina to dinner
(fol. 73v; possibly the « Cassius » of, for example, foli. 75v and 77v is the same person).
(Montanus also appears in the Vatican list of borrowers for an entry in December
1477 : Maria Bertòla, I due primi registri di prestito della Biblioteca Apostolica Vati
cana, Città di Castello 1942, 15). The foregoing seems to do little more than prove
friendship and raise the possibility of membership, a prospect that looks improbable
in the face of présent evidence as will be seen. Montanus also appears in a letter
from Campano to Gentile da Becchi (Op. omn., Epist. 6, foli. gvir-vnv) ; di Bernardo
(pp. 205-206) called this a list of Academicians and thus the inclusion of Montanus
may have heightened the feeling that he was in the First Academy; the list seems,
however, more a list of académies in Italy some of whom were in the Academy and
most of whom were not — Campano never raised the names in terms of the Roman
Academy and the only Academy mentioned is the Platonic when Ficino is discussed.
If we identify Montanus with a « Lucius Montanus » of the letters in Ottob. lat. 1982,
fol. 45" (see Appendix III) then we can at least guess at membership in the Second
Academy but stili not the First.
27 Marsi was out of Rome over the relevant period; Della Torre (as note 9), pp. 22,
26-29 and 47. Marsi's list is less complete merely because he names only those caught
in the first wave of arrests. Earlier Della Torre published an article (to which I
shall make no further reference) on this poem from Marsi's Bembice: Un carme
latino sopra la persecuzione di papa Paolo II contro l'accademica Pomponiana: Rivista
cristiana, new series (1899) 59-66. The poem, « Ad fratres Academicos Romae capti
vos », is printed on pp. 64-65 but one must be warned that at the time of this article
Della Torre (p. 65) failed to identify « Calvus » as Platina and « Phosphorus » as
Lucidus. My thanks go to Dr. Peter Spring for his kind assistance in locating a copy
of this article for me.
is important since it could help to identify inscriptions as b

to the First Academy. If the grafitti in its entirety or even
most incriminating bits belong to the period of the Second A
then the meaning of the grafitti and its significance as evide
be greatly affected.
Looking at Platina's list, one which agréés with but is
longer than Marsi's, one finds Pomponio, Platina, Callim
metrius, Campanus, Marsus, Augustinus, Lucidus, Glaucus
and Petreius 2S. To this group we might add Asclepiadeus.
deus, Petreius, Glaucus and Callimachus, the latter three on the
advice of Cardinal Bessarion, made their escape when the arrests
began29.
By way of introduction to the members of the First Academy
these men will be more fully identifìed in the order in which they
have been named which is roughly the order of their credited intel
lectual weight and renown. After Pomponio comes Bartolomeo
Sacchi da Piadena or Platina. He was a humanist who moved in ali
the right circles: at Mantua studying at Vittorino da Feltre's sc
(by then under Ognibene da Lonigo) at which Platina eventua
taught for the Gonzaga, then off to Florence and Medici patro
before settling in Rome under the patronage of, at various times,
former pupil, the now Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, the patrona
Pius II, of Cardinal Ammannati-Piccolomini and the patronage
Sixtus IV. He is famous for his various tracts, orations, his His
of the Popes and his De honesta voluptate (the world's first pri
cookbook; both of the last two were very big sellers) and he is
known for his reorganization of the Vatican Library while libr
there 30.
Platina, like Pomponio, had a réputation for being outspoken.
28 Liber (as note 4), pp. 380-382. Zabughin (as note 4; I, 171) is in one sense wrong
in stating that Platina's list differs from Marsi's in adding Petreio to those actually
arrested since Platina merely mentions his flight only later to describe his torture;
Platina also puts Glaucus in the category of those who fled although he does leave
out Asclepiadeus. Egidio da Viterbo has « Petreius meus » captured: Historia viginti
saeculorum, see section reprinted in Zippel (as note 26), p. 183.
29 Georg Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des Classischen Alterthums oder das Erste
Jahrhundert des Humanismus II, Berlin 1881, 240. Platina disregarded similar advice;
see his letter to Bessarion among the collection of prison letters at the Biblioteca
Comunale, Savignano sul Rubicone (henceforth to be cited as « SsR ») MS 68, fol. 149";
this is one of the letters printed by T. A. Vairani, Cremonensium monumenta extantia,
Rome 1778, 33. For a further mention of the flight of Glaucus beyond the ambassadors'
letters which will follow shortly, see Filippo Callimacho, Poems, in Cod. Barb. lat.
2031, fol. 4Γ. Two direct sources for someone named Asclepiadeus or Marcus Romanus
having fled are Canensi (as note 26), p. 154 and Patrizi (as note 26), p. 182. That a
Marcus Romanus fled who was in fact a member of the Academy and went to Africa
due to « false accusations » is stated by Callimachus, Cod. Barb. lat. 2031, foli. δί^-ίΧΚ
30 The best general treatment of Platina's life is Gaida's preface to the Liber (as
note 4), pp. iv-xxxiv. As here with Platina, it will not be my practise to recite much
information or literature on each Academician unless they have a hearing on the
conspiracy.
Awarded a post as an Abbreviat

he was, with many others, sack
After his dismissal in 1464 he t
and organized, to no effect, a v
antechamber. His temper risin
Pope threatening, for example,
The price for this and similar
in Castel Sant'Angelo, the papa
home to Milan, Jacopo Aretio s
Platina beheaded : « As Platina i
ments this mischance... It is true, however, that when the Pope
spoke to the Cardinal [Gonzaga], he [the Cardinal] excused Platina
as a madman. This deed of folly, indeed, proves him to be such »32.
Proceeding on we come to Callimachus Experiens (Filippo Buo
naccorsi), the man upon whom Platina and Pomponio would lay so
much of the blâme for the imprisonment of the Academicians. A
prolifìc writer of poetry, orations and history, Callimachus was a
secretary to the Cardinal of Ravenna, Bartolommeo Roverella, when
the conspiracy broke33. He fled from Italy to Greece, then Cyprus,
then Rhodes, Egypt, then Turkey and finally ended up in Poland
under the protection of Polish humanists and Fanny Sventoca who
figures in many of his love poems. He was secretary to Casimir
IV, tutor to his son Ioannes Albertus and was eventually heavily
involved in Polish diplomatie missions. Although his politicai tract
Consilia has earned him the title « precursor of Machiavelli »,
the intrigues which have been associated with his last years in Poland
appear to be more fabrications of Paolo Giovio than fact34. Calli
machus did much to stimulate humanism in Poland and the North
and eventually cofounded with Conrad Celtis in Poland an influent
Academy which looked back to Pomponio's group, the Sodalitas litt
raria Vistulana which then promoted the growth of three others,
the Danubiana, Rhenana and Baltica35. Pomponio's estimation of
Callimachus as related in Pomponio's self-defence is that Callimachus
was a man of « perversos mores »36.
31 Liber, pp. 369-370.

32 Printed and trans, in Pastor IV, 4041.
33 Platina says that Callimachus got into Roverella's household via his, Platina's,
intercession; SsR, MS 68, fol. 146v or Vairani, pp. 36-37. See Dunston (as note 3;
p. 294) for a fine discussion of possible reasons for Buonaccorsi being called « Calli
machus Experiens ».
34 Zabughin (as note 4) I, 122; Bohdan Kieszkowski, Filippo Buonaccorsi detto Calli
maco e le correnti filosofiche del Rinascimento: Giornale critico della filosofia italiana
15 (1934) 285-286 and 290-292; H. R. Zeissberg, Kleinere Geschichtsquellen Polens im
Mittelalter: Archiv fiir dsterreichische Geschichte 55 (1877) 47-56 and Paparelli (as
note 9), pp. 11, 191 and 201.
35 Paparelli, p. 207.
36 Responsio, in Cod. Vat. lat. 2934, fol. 306^ on fol. 307r Pomponio says that Platina
and Bishop [Giannantonio] Campano can testify to his estimation of Callimachus as
Demetrius is Demetrio da Lucca or Demetrio Guasselli da Lucca.

A close friend and student of Platina's, Demetrio replaced Platina
Vatican librarian upon Platina's death37.
Campanus in this context must refer to Antonius Septumulei
Campanus who died at an early age not long after his release fr
prison. Highly esteemed by Platina and Pomponio, he appears t
have been a student of Pomponio's who had shown great promise
Marsus would be Petrus Marsus, patronized like Platina by the G
zaga and like Pomponio a professor at the University of Rome.
could not be Paulus Marsus Pescinus since he both was a constant
friend of Paul II and was not, as has been remarked, in Rome at
the time39. Augustinus is Agostino Maffei Patrizi da Verona40, Lu
cidus is Lucio Marco Fazini Maffei Fosforo (eventually Bishop of
Segni)41 and Glaucus is Marino Coldemero da Venezia42. Asclepia
deus would be Marcus Franceschinus Romanus, a member of Bishop
Giannantonio Campano's household43. Lucilius and Petreius continue
to présent such particular problems of identification that the whole
issue is explored separately in Appendix IV. At this point one can
only assert that, contrary to recent scholarly opinion, Petreius is not
Demetrio da Lucca; who he is completely eludes me. At any rate
it is possibly of relevance to note that most of the preceding were
a man of bad character and of an insane state of mind. Throughout the prison letters
Platina independently emphasizes the same theme.
37 Della Torre (as note 9), p. 96; Gherardi (as note 10), p. 98 and Eugène Mûntz
and Paul Fabre, La bibliothèque du Vatican au XVe siècle, Paris 1887, 135 and 139.
38 Platina, Liber (as note 4), p. 383 and the prison letter of A. Campano to Platina,
SsR, MS 68, fol. 133v or Vairani, pp. 43-44; Campano's prison letter to Rodrigo Sanchez
at Cambridge University, Corpus Christi College Library (henceforth cited as « CUL »)
MS 166, foli. 138™ and 1481"; Roberto Weiss, Un umanista veneziano: Papa Paolo II,
Venice 1958, 45-46.
37 Tiraboschi (as note 9) V/iii, p. 660; Della Torre, pp. 97-98; Zabughin (as note 4) I,
171 and Joseph Delz, Ein unbekannter Brief von Pomponius Laetus: Italia medioevale
e humanistica 9 (1966) 429.
40 « Pomponius Infortunatus [imprisonedl ad Platinam Infelicem, Idem ad Augusti
num de Maffeis », SsR, MS. 68, foli. 145™; Rodrigo Sanchez to « Augustino Maffeo
Patritio Veronese », CUL, MS 166, fol. 136v ; Laeto, Opuscula (as note 12), fol. xii and
Zip pel (as note 26), p. 182 n. 5. Rossi, Cosmico (as note 12), p. 109 suggests that he too
might have been an abbreviator under Paul II, but one might wonder if Rossi is
here mistaking him for the Agostino Patrizi of n. 49. Agostino could be the « Patritio
meo » in Platina's De hon. volupt. (as note 11), fol. Ί&.
41 Zabughin I, 98 and 160 and Zippel, p. 182 n. 4. Writing to Lucidus while in
prison, Platina refers to him as « adolescens » ; SsR, MS 68, fol. 146v or Vairani,
pp. 37-38.
42 Rossi, Il quattrocento (as note 5), pp. 218 and 382; Pastor IV, 43; Canensi (as
note 26), pp. 154-155 also Bianchi [in Emilio Motta, Bartolomeo Platina e papa Paolo II :
La Perseveranza (7 March 1882) n. 8040; also available in note by same author under
the same title in Archivio della R. società Romana di storia patria 7 (1884) 555-5591
who names a « ... lucio de cavo de mare Venetiano, parente del papa, chè desceso da
la parentella de papa Eugenio [IV : Gabriele Condulmier] » in his second letter of
the 28th and names a « Glaucho » for the same person in his letter of the 29th in
Pastor IV, 488; these letters will be discussed in détail later on.
43 Zippel, p. 154 η. 1; Platina comments upon the food preferences of an « Aescula
pius Romanus » in De hon. volupt., fol. 76r.
members of the circle that had

his associâtes; several, in fact, were dismissed Abbreviators.
Pius II, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, was an accomplished hu
manist in his own righi although there is some debate as to how
great a patron he actually was. Paul II's position in relation to hu
manism, especially as a patron, is surrounded by even greater con
troversy. Without much hésitation it may be said that he did not
tend to patronize Pius II's old circle and that a goodly amout of
ili will existed between him and them aside from his problems with
the Academy44.
Platina's literary portrait of Paul as a hater of learning was soon
so fìrmly entrenched that it is that singular trait for which posterity
has most come to remember Paul. Serious attempts have been made
to change this but Platina's image of Paul, as presented in his History
of the Popes, is the one that lives on. One cannot say that Platina
failed to warn him as in the following passage from a letter to
Paul which is so candidly self-seeking as to cast doubts on what
Platina eventually did record of Paul. Writing from prison. Platina
advises that
... if you should free us and alleviate our poverty a bit (we do not wish great
riches, a small amount will do), you would have us as your most faithful
servants. We would celebrate in prose and poetry the name of Paul and this
golden age which your most happy pontificate has brought about. In regards
to public affaire poets and orators are necessary under princes lest the deeds
ol ancient men be lost through a lack of authors. Who would know of the
virtuous examples of Christ, the apostles, martyrs, emperors, kings and of
princes unless they who write of them were held of value?45.
Platina even goes on to express the commonplace that Achilles would

have been a « nobody » if it had not been for Homer.
Although it is probable that Platina's biography of Paul is his
implied revenge, it would seem that in calling Paul a hater of learning
(and we might imagine a hater of humanists of the sort Pomponio
and Platina represent) Platina did choose a plausible trait on which
44 di Bernardo (as note 9; p. 138) gives the Pius clique of cardinale as encompassing
Bernardo Eroli, Niccolò Forteguerri, Francesco Gonzaga, Bartolomeo Roverella, Fran
cesco Todeschini, Iacopo Ammannati-Piccolomini and Alessandro Oliva. Ammannati-Pic
colomini provides an illustration: to sharp words Paul aimed at Ammannati about his
lowly origin, Ammannati wrote in reply, « Impara, impara, ο Paolo, quale sia la vera
nobilità. È forse cotesta tua, veneziana e mercantilesca, conquisitata attraverso lunghe
navigazione? La sola nobilità degna di un vicario di Cristo, è quella di non indulgere
ai peccati, e agire nel migliore dei modi. Tu pensi di essere per la tua posizione au
torizzato a lanciare contumelie e parole vituperose? » printed in Giuseppe Calamari,
II confidente di Pio II, Card. Iacopo Ammannati-Piccolomini I, Rome 1932, 245. Di Ber
nardo mentions that after 1469 relations between Paul and Bishop Campano improved
dramatically (pp. 2 and 188) but as proof of the ili will similar to Ammannati's,
perhaps exaggerated, that preceded he présents the following from a letter of Campano
to Alfonso of Aragon: « Sub Pio Pont, vixi non sine aliqua gratia et opinione; qua
de re habuit me odio Paulus, ut habuit ceteros, qui memoriae afficerentur » (p. 185).
45 SsR, MS 68, foli. 145v-146r and Vairani, pp. 30-31.
to pounce. Paul's major interest in antiquities leaned to

terial objects with the exception (?) of books which wer
items : gems, cameos, medallions, coins, etc. ; his only
terest — he fiat hated poetry — were a few historian
iclers; and his interest in ancient monuments tended to
farther than to ones he could acquire as a collector or t
which he could carve his name — which, I suppose, is a
to fame than retaining a band of humanists. And it
emphasized that these same détails, presented, it must b
more persuasively and with a différent slant of course,
one of Paul's apologists, Roberto Weiss, and his already
Un umanista veneziano: Papa Paolo II*6.
The ambassadors' letters which were mentioned earlier as so
very damaging for the humanists are not exactly flattering for Paul's
réputation either. Ambassador Bianchi's letter reporting the result
of what is in effect a papal « press conférence » called the day afte
the arrests states : « ... and then his Holiness began to damn greatl
these humanist studies saying that if God should grant that he should
live, he would see to two things ; one of which would be that it would
not be permissable to study these vain historiés and poems which
are so full of heresy and evil words »47.
In fairness to Paul and without engaging in the définition
stretching of his apologists, it can be allowed that he was not truly
a hater of learning just as he was not much of a humanist. Mandell
Creighton (III, 275) observed that: « On the whole, considering the
malignity of Platina, it is a great testimony to the virtues of Paul II
that there was nothing worse to be said about him ». It is unfortu
nate for Paul that his defenders too often argue in the terms set
46 Here Weiss singles out Paul's « entusiasmo per l'antichità» {as note 38; p. 7)
and admits it would be absurd to maintain « ... che l'umanesimo di Paolo II fosse
fondamentalmente di natura letteraria » <p. 30). Aside from the titles of the chapters
which are indicative enough of Paul's bent, see pp. 12-13, 22 and 24-30. Paul's apparent
lack of skill in Latin and his unquestionable disinclination to using Latin (Weiss,
pp. 10-11) should be argument enough as to whether he was a humanist in any mean
ingful sense. Actually Weiss' book is a good one short of this tendency to an overly
enthusiastic application of the term « humanist » and an inclination to avoid bad
evidence for the good; hence, speaking of Paul's humanist teachers and in particular
of George of Trebizond, Weiss (p. 15) notes: « ...fu [George] anzi salvato da seri guai
grazie alla compassione ed all'indulgenza dell'antico discepolo ». The reference is to
Paul's release of the seventy year old George from prison; Weiss does not mention
that it was Paul who imprisoned him to begin with. See also Rossi, II quattrocento
(as note 5), p. 217 and Calamari I, 243. When Platina charges: « Praeterea vero Paulus
crimini nobis dabat, quod nimium gentilitatis amatores essemus, cum nemo eo huius
rei studiosior esset... » his explanation of Paul's « humanism » only mentions the
acquisition of material objects: Liber (as note 4), p. 388.
tt Pastor IV, 491. Another contemporary source favorable to the Academicians,
the « Giornale di Paolo II », repeats the Platina like lament on Paul's hatred of poets
and orators; Zabughin (as note 4) I, 44 n. 122. Filelfo, a questionable source, spoke
of the « incredibile libertà » enjoyed in Rome under Sixtus IV as opposed to how
things had been under Paul: Rossi, Il quattrocento (as note 5), p. 219. It seems Paul
also tightened things up for « elegant women»; Mercati (as note 11), p. 62 n. 4.
by Platina at the expense of

Church.
A final relevant characterization would be Paul's réputation for
being suspicious. For example Pastor (IV, 16 and 27) claims that
he caused a good deal of aggravation by instructing the Chancery to
accept only the originals of documents.
Having now some familiarity with the principals involved, it is
possible to enter upon the conspiracy itself in greater depth. The
most extensive relation of the conspiracy from contemporary sources,
as has been said, comes from Platina in his History of the Popes.
For want of a basic and straightforward reconstruction of the in
cident, he will be allowed to state first the case for the Academicians,
one which obviously needs to be treated with caution. As has been
already remarked, this is the account that held sway until the
nineteenth century:
But behold that amidst such public rejoicing [Carnival] Paul was seized
with terror. It was reported that certain youths, with Callimachus at their
head, conspired against him. Breathless with fear, he then had, by what fate
I know not, a new fear added. Namely that a certain man known as the
Philosopher [Andrea Romano]48, a man who was both wicked and an exile,
and who having plead first for his life and for his return to his native city
[Rome] said, falsely indeed, that Luca de Tocio had fled Naples with a band
of exiles and had been in nearby Velletri and soon would be here.
Paul then began to tremble greatly lest he himself were caught and taken
by surprise at home or outside. Many were seized in the city from among
the courtiers and among the Romans. Vianesio [protonotary from Bologna
and one of Paul's right hand men] helped to increase his fear as did others
of his associâtes who sought their own interests out of so great a disturbance.
Paul's men broke into peoples' houses indiscriminately. They imprisoned
anyone whom they suspected of conspiracy. And that I myself might not be
lacking such a calamity, at night they surrounded the house which I inhabit
and broke in. They seized a member of my household, Demetrio da Lucca,
from whom they learned that I was dining at the house of the Cardinal of
Mantua to which they immediately proceeded. Seizing me there they took me
straight off to see Paul. When he saw me he said, « So you with Callimachus
as your leader have conspired against us? » Then I, aroused by my innocence,
responded accordingly and with so steadfast a spirit that he was not able to
detect in me any sign of a bad conscience (pp. 380-382).
In summary Platina goes on to say that Paul became enraged

and threatened him with now torture, now death. Platina told Paul
that Callimachus was not only incapable of a conspiracy against him
but was also lacking the means to carry it off. At this point Paul
got tough and listening no further threw them ali into prison. Soon
Paul was advised that Luca de Tocio had not set a foot beyond Naples
and three days later he reversed both his warrant and reward for
48 See also Canensi (as note 26), p. 156. Incidentally, Dunston (as note 3; pp. 296
298) takes the most up-to-date look at the controversy surrounding Gaspare da Ve
rona's « failure » to discuss the conspiracy against his patron in his life of Paul II.
Luca's arrest. The Quadrati brothers, imprisoned be

in an apparently unrelated incident, however, remai
Freed from fear, Platina continues, Paul turned to the Aca
demicians and had them tortured for many days. Campano died
later as a result of both those tormente and a broken spirit. To
Vianesio's questioning Platina's aiding Callimachus, Platina said that
that could hardly be the case since there was quite a bit of enmity
between them. To a query over Pomponio's having, in a letter, called
Platina « patrem sanctissimum », Platina suggested that Pomponio,
not he, be asked for an explanation. Regarding the pontificate itself,
Platina argued that they had no worries from him since he was content
with a private life. Tortured again, Platina claimed he was thrown,
half dead, back into prison and that his right arm was greatly de
bilitated as a result.
In conclusion, the charge of heresy was added eventually and
Pomponio was dragged in from Venice. Examined as to why he
changed the youths' names, Pomponio asked what business of theirs
was it as long as it is done without deceit or trouble to anyone, the
ancient name being in fact an incitement to virtue. Finally Platina
states that after resumed periodic torture, most of the Academicians
were kepi in prison an entire year (pp. 382-390).
The other major « eyewitness » source on the conspiracy is the
ambassadors' lettere. The most incriminating letters are two dispatch
es of Giovanni Bianchi addressed to Galeazzo Maria Sforza thim
self murdered in 1476 by youths partially inspired to the act by th
republican théories of their humanist teacher, Cola Montana] bo
dated 28 February 1468, a third letter dated 29 February 1468 an
letter from Agostino Rossi to Sforza dated 29 February 146849.
One of Bianchi's letters of the twenty-eighth (and presumab
the first to be written that day) says little more than that some
kind of threat has caused the pope to move his residence50. The
other letter of that date tells far more: « It has come about from
the devices of some poets who are secretaries of Cardinale and who
perhaps out of a liking for Roman history and a desire to return
Rome to the olden days... that they have conspired against the
49 There is also the letter mentioned on p. 124 from Agostino Patrizi to Antonio (?)
Monelli. The letter is undated but judging from the sequence of events it relates,
it was written at least a week after the discovery of the plot. It merely says that
there was a conspiracy, names the participants and so on. None of the information
is new nor is there anything évident which would qualify Patrizi as a more reliable
source than the ambassadors whose letters we are examining — he seems merely to
be passing on what has been told to him. The fact that he was a member of Paul's
household (as note 26; p. 181 n. 9) might indicate he was stating the officiai account.
Since he was not imprisoned, he must not be the Agostino Maffei Patrizi da Verona
of the Academy; see n. 40. In fact both his disapprovai of the Academicians in the
letter plus the fact that he there mentions « Aug. Mapheus » would indicate that
Zippel (p. 181 n. 9 and 182 n. 5) correctly kept the identities separate.
» Published by Pastor IV, 483.
person of the pope... » Four r

« Platina », « Lucio de cavo de m
de li dicti quattro principali c
singled out as the informer th
his patron the Cardinal of Pavi
ed him for telling tales. The Cardinals of Teano [Niccolò Forte
guerri da Pistoia! and of Man tua [Gonzaga] are given as the ones
who eventually brought the news to the pope. The letter goes on
to teli how the conspiracy was to be efïected, confusedly giving four
plans in ali with the comments « some say... stili others say... »
Lastly the involvement of Luca de Tocio is announced51.
Bianchi's letter of 29 February says that his source on first hear
ing of the conspiracy was some principals in the court and adds that
these things were being said throughout Rome. Later the pope sum
moned ali the ambassadors and other interested parties to brief
them on what had occurred. What follows in this letter is a para
phrasing of what the pope had told him : that the Cardinal of Mantua
had struck the alarm, the names of the arrested, the nature of the
conspiracy and the dangerous beliefs held by the Academicians. De
Rossi's letter of 29 February adds little and nearly reads as though
it were an amalgam of Bianchi's letters. It does name Pomponio as
« ... uno de li principalissimi ... who went to Venice a year ago to
study and has been detained there for some reason »52.
On 4 March 1468 De Rossi wrote to Sforza to report that nothing
new had developed in relation to the conspiracy and instead much
that was originally reported had proved false such as the story of
Luca de Tocio being near Rome. In fact, he continued, every effort
had been made to discover if there were any substance to the whole
affair and nothing more could be uncovered than some mad and
empty talk of attempting, so the gossips say, to kill the pope in the
manner in which he had already related. (Pastor IV, 492).
These letters, presently lynch pins of the papal case, would seem
to have serious weaknesses as documentary proof of a conspiracy.
This is true if only because there are, in fact, but three sources for
ali that the ambassadors report: members of the court, rumor and
Paul himself. The Academicians and their apologists have always
maintained that there really was no conspiracy and that Paul was
using the pretext of the admittedly wild yet empty talk of Callimachus
as an excuse to squash what he apparently considered a potentially
dangerous group and, it should be added, one for which he had
gradually accumulated a storehouse of ili feeling. The information
related by the ambassadors does not effectively contest this claim
51 Motta as cited η. 42.
52 Pastor also published both of these letters: IV, 488492 and 484487 respective
De Rossi likewise calls Platina secretary to Cardinal Gonzaga.
THE ROMAN ACADEMY, THE catacombs ... 133
since the ultimate source in each case could easily hav

one case actually was, the pope himself or his agent
« press conférence », interestingly enough, is the autho
the most damaging révélations.
The grafitti are also in the position of being far l
evidence once one takes a closer look at them. The concern for now
will be their attribution; the problem of interprétation will be con
sidered later. Keeping in mind the first two appendices at the end
of this paper, several things might quickly be said in arriving at some
dates for the grafitti53. The first is that none of the grafitti involving
Pomponio could have been made between the summer of 1467 and
March of 1468, that is just before the conspiracy, because he was
in Venice at the time. Another obvious point is that Pomponio,
Mathias and Parthenius are the only persons to figure in each of the
four catacombs. In fact Parthenius and Mathias, the only ones be
sides Pomponio to appear in more than just Callisto, never appear
in an inscription that makes any kind of reference to the Academy
itself so they, as in the other places where this occurs, could have
been on a casual visit and just touring « with friends » — this is ali
the more likely since these names do not occur in Callisto near
inscriptions of that catacomb which do make a reference to the
Academy itself.
As is évident from Appendix II, excepting Pomponio there is a
basic pattern which differentiates Callisto from the other catacombs
in that no one who appears in Callisto in an inscription which has
an Academy reference in it appears in any of the other catacombs.
The catacomb of SS. Marcellino and Pietro is in an analogous position
in having only Pomponio's name duplicated in another catacomb.
Actually the only places where much duplication of names occur
are between Priscilla, Pretestato and the « unofficial » visits to Cal
listo and there we repeatedly encounter the names Mat(t)hias,
Parthenivs and slightly less so, Orion. Parthenivs or Partenio Mi
nucio Pallini da Roma does seem to make an « officiai » appearance
in Callisto in the guise of Minvtivs but that he seems to have
dropped his first name for his second in the seemingly more formai
53 Cosmo Stornatolo, without saying why, claimed that ali the inscriptions date
from around 1475: II Giovanni Battista ed II Pantagatho: Nuovo bollettino di Archeo
logia cristiana 12 (1906) 67-68 n. 4. Stornaiolo probably assumed that the date on one
of the grafitti (he appears to have depended on De Rossi who published only one
inscription that was dated) held for ali. In what looks to be an educated guess,
Roberto Weiss (as note 38; p. 46) leans towards assigning the catacomb inscriptions
to the time of Sixtus IV. Dunston (as note 3; pp. 288-289) in discounting the inscriptions
as evidence against the Academy in 1468, dates the inscriptions 1475 (which ones is
not clear; if just the one dated inscription of which he knew through De Rossi and
which he had been discussing, then he has left the others to attack his conclusions;
if he meant ali of the inscriptions, then he has failed to give reasons for assigning
them ali the same date).
or « officiai » visit to Callisto hig

the incriminating, « officiai » inscr
inscriptions. An initial inference
ings of visits that are probably s
time. Along these lines of thoug
in common at ali, they must be t
« unofficial » sections of Callisto
likely inference is that ali that i
lack of it in the grafitti is that t
thereby leaving us with the conclu
were more informai than many s
Callisto has the only dated inscr
belong obviously to the Second Aca
among the grafitti in Callisto with
match those of known members
Pomponio and possibly Partheniu
monstrates, whatever evidence we have on these names leads us to
believe, again short of Pomponio and possibly Parthenius, that they
each were either probably or definitely members of the Second
Academy. The disjunction mentioned earlier which sets Callisto's
« officiai » visits apart does not look to be accidentai and it is
probably safe to assign ali of those undated but « officiai » inscriptions
to a post conspiracy date sometime after the reformation of the
Academy in the time of Sixtus IV. The change in usage from Par
thenius to Minutius heightens this suspicion.
The names in SS. Marcellino and Pietro, minus Pomponio, show
no similarity at ali to those in the other catacombs and repeat the
« disjunction » of Callisto. Since a journey through the catacombs
will quickly reveal to even the most casual observor the tendency for
visitors before and after the Academicians to decorate the walls with
their names (P. Mazzali showed me De Rossi's name a number of times
in Callisto!), it is quite possible that these three catacombs record
« unofficial » visits by various Academicians and their friends. Within
the context of what one usually finds in the catacombs, only some
of the Callisto inscriptions might turn one's eye.
It is probable that SS. Marcellino and Pietro were visited before
1475. The phrase « Academicians and their friends » touches upon
the realization that none of the names in SS. Marcellino and Pietro,
aside from Pomponio and Platina, look to be known members of
either Academy. We do find Ruffus and Fabius who were part of
Platina's social circle before the arrests (n. 25) if not after. This
does not help much in dating but the fact that Bishop Giannantonio
Campano was not bishop of Teramo until 1463 and that he died in
54 If I am correct in my identification of Hercin, then the inscription inexplicably
dated « MCCCX » must be Second Academy also.
1477 does ; he was not in Rome 1465-1468 and 1474-147

ing the chances of a quick, unrecorded trip to Rome
the catacombs, this does suggest an approximate 146
1474 for the inscription in which his name appears
tend not to date an inscription 1475.
Pretestato, Priscilla and the « unofficial » sections of
obviously allied in the corrélation of the names foun
tunately I have no readily available means to find an
this group of visits. The presence of Caecvs (Callim
testato offers our only clue to dating on the assum
inscription is pre 1468 by at least the near year or s
departure to Venice and this does not take into acc
allowed for the supposed animosity and break in rela
had had with Callimachus to which reference has alrea
The only other option here is to date the inscription b
and June 1477 when Callimachus as an ambassador
visit to Rome subséquent to the conspiracy of 14685S.
Ali this lends further weight to the belief that t
between the inscriptions are greater than has been a
one of the most interesting of these différences occur
Without letting ali this become unnecessarily involved
of significance to this paper are that the « officiai »
tions are a breed apart beyond their incriminating
there are solid reasons for making them the property
Academy. In other words ali the inscriptions that ca
post 1468 and none of the others, despite possible
dating, need bother us. The grafitti, both since they ali
any real conspiratorial intent and, more importantly
inscriptions for which such a case could possibly b
from the Second Roman Academy, ought not to figure
figure at ali, in more than the heresy charges, accusat
receive a separate treatment later. With no positive
for or against the existence of a general conspiracy,
left with the unappetizing alternatives of merely gu
believe, the Academicians or the pope.
Left to our own devices we might for one say that
question that the time was not right for anyone, most
Academicians, to be raising suspicions of republican
as cautious and tough minded as Paul II56. In recent
5*a di Bernardo (as note 9), pp. 157 and 179.
55 Paparelli (as note 9), pp. 141-143 and 161-162; Paparelli is here correcting Apostolo
Zeno.
56 It is difficult to allow D-unston's emphasis on Paul's attention to astrology partially
based on Dunston's premise that: « The Italiens have ever been a superstitious race,
and the coming of Christianity has made no différence, save, perhaps, to convert
prodigies to miracles » (as note 3; p. 305). If he is to argue from such generalizations
there had been several disturbance

the papacy prior to Paul's accessio
had had with Platina in 1464, there were also several incidents of
relevance to the conspiracy of 1468 to have made Paul personally
ali the more wary. These difficulties range from war with Count
Everso of Anguillara to troubles with the Fraticelli, the Orsini family
and the « conspiracy » of another outspoken humanist, George of
Trebizond58.
at ali, then perhaps a more relevant and spécifie one is that of W. P. D. Wightman :
« ... there is reason to believe that concern for prognostication (astrology) was then
more widespread and obsessive in Germany than elsewhere » ; in fact, complete sceptics
of astrology were « rare indeed » : Science in a Renaissance Society, London 1972, 33
and 36. Beyond this Dunston (p. 304) and Garin (as note 5; pp. 148-150) follow a
similar line of argument about recent Roman history being likely to keep any pope
suspicious. Weiss (as note 38; p. 20) thinks the tension in the air a major factor in
the arrests.
57 In 1434 there was a successful uprising of the people against Eugenius IV as
Rome was beseiged by forces from Milan; Creighton (as note 20) II, 90. A dangerous
conspiracy was mounted by Stephen Porcaro against Nicholas V ; Nicholas had initally
treated Stephen with leniency and eventually had to face serious opposition; Porcaro
was executed and Nicholas was cautious ever after: Platina, Liber (as note 4), pp. 329
and 336. Even Pius II was not spared diflìculties in maintaining his authority within
the city. While away on a trip to Siena, two brothers, Tiburzio and Valeriano di
Maso (their father was Porcaro's brother-in-law and was executed as one of his ac
complices), set off various acts of riot and brigandage which also had a tinge of
republicanism and conspiracy to them; once Pius had things in hand, he saw to it
that Tiburzio was hanged: Pastor III, 108-112; Platina fairly breezes over this episode
in his history (p. 352).
58 Pastor IV, 45 and 113-115: Paparelli (p. 34) has suggested links between Calli
machus and Trebizond in that Callimachus may have been one of Trebizond's students
at Venice prior to coming to Rome. It might be remembered that comparable to the
Fraticelli in the nature of the attack on the papacy, especially papal materialism.
Paul had had diflìculties with the Hussites; L. Fumi reprints a letter by Agostino
Rossi (in 1466) which demonstrates the seemingly unintentioned similarities that can
be seen between these two groups in terms of opinions regarding clérical materialism,
the institutional validity of the papacy and the dates of their conflicts with Paul; the
latter also discusses the contemporaneous imprisonment of George of Trebizond: Ere
tici in Boemia e fraticelli nel Roma: Archivio della R. società Romana di storia patria
34 (1911) 117-130. Relevant to Paul's problème at home both with the humanists and
the Fraticelli is the fact that here again there is a common dislike for the materialism
that was présent in the Church. Aside from the réputations of Pomponio and Calli
machus in this, Platina might be singled out for mention: commenting on his History
of the Popes, for example, Alphonso Ciaconio [Alonso Chacón] remarked that Platina
was « ... maledicus [sic] et conviciator acerrimus multorum Pontificum, quos sola libi
dine detrahendi nihil tale commeritos, conviciis insectatur, et petulanter, atque pro
caciter mordet, et lacerai»; Vitae et res gestae Pontificum Romanorum et S.R.E.
Cardinalium I, Rome 1630, col. 2; see also Zabughin (as note 4) I, 60-69 and 71. Paul
seems to have had particular cause to be sensitive to attacks on clérical materialism:
Massimo Miglio wrote a brief history of the apologies made for Paul's notoriously
expensive tiara; later the article examines Ottob. lat. 793 which is a dialogue on the
subject of the tiara in which a Fraticello argues it to be unsuited to a pope! Miglio
attributes the dialogue to Cardinal Jean Jouffroy (p. 284) and dates it, interestingly
enough, to the year 1468 (p. 286); M. Miglio, Vidi thiaram Pauli papae secundi: Bol
lettino dell'Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo 81 (1969) 273-296 and reprinted
under the same title in Miglio's Storiografia pontificia del quattrocento, Bologna 1975,
121-153. There does not seem to be a direct connection between the Fraticelli and
the Roman Academy beyond a vague similarity in opinion on a topic of some sen
sitivity with Paul, clérical wealth, most specifically his. The De Rossi letter published
Should we compound this climate of suspicion w

tagonista towards the Academicians partially based o
tions with Pius II's circle and also with Callimachus'
as yet another humanist with too quick a tongue and a
then it is at least likely that Paul did have some pr
by Callimachus upon which he could act just as he h
against the loose tongues of Platina and George of T
we have seen, the ambassadors concur with the Academicians that
it was the talk of Callimachus that opened the issue to the pope.
Yet it must be admitted that we have no real evidence against the
Academy as a whole of even talking of a conspiracy let alone actually
devising one.
The arresi of Platina fits within such a line of argument. Aside
from there being nothing in his background to hint at his being
willing to take such an extreme and active step as to pian to murder
the pope Ino purposeful insult to scholars here] regarding the con
spiracy itself he was not one of the first to be arrested although he
was later named as one of the ringleaders — his arrest appears to
have been more an after thought. When he was apprehended, he
was found dining at Cardinal Gonzaga's house, the Cardinal in whose
employ he was at the time, his former student and a member of the
family which had always patronized him; yet it was Cardinal Gon
zaga of Mantua who divulged his own knowledge of any plot to the
pope60. We might likewise keep in mind that Platina and Pomponio
both claimed to have had nothing to do with Callimachus at this
time; to this we might append the comment that if Pomponio and
Platina were truly avoiding Callimachus, it is unlikely that most of
by Fumi has much that is harmful to Paul's réputation : « Dominus vero Bernardus
Iustinianus, oratore venetiano, inanti che Ί se partisse de qua, diceva che non se
maravigliava zà de questa rixìa, ma si bene che Ί non ne fosse ancora più, attenti
li modi et la pompa intollerabile de tutta questa corte, et maxime che 1 papa tutto Ί
dì sta in numerare et asortire dinari et infilare perle, loco di pater nostri » (pp. 123 and
126-127). The same letter reports the encounter George of Trebizond had had with
Paul; De Rossi calls him Leonardo (Fumi, pp. 123-124, corrects this to George) and
relates that George's imprisonment was due to a conspiracy he had formed with
the Turks against Paul, his former pupil, and against the Church (p. 127); Zippel
(as note 26; p. 43 η. 1 and p. 44 η. 1 and 2) discusses the more likely reasons for the
imprisonment of this oft imprisoned humanist, namely his sharp tongue.
59 Again on the theme of the conflict between Paul and the associâtes of Pius II,
Peter Partner expressed the opinion that: « The real cause of this conspiracy seems
to have been the pope's attempt to reduce the number of vénal offices in the curia;
and accusations of ' paganism ' were made against the conspirators only in the usuai
way that heresy charges followed accusations of rébellion against the Church » ; Re
naissance Rome 1500-1559, Berkeley 1976, 13.
M By this time, despite difficulties at the beginning of Paul's pontificate, Paul and
Cardinal Gonzaga were on good terms; Zippel, pp. 28-29 η. 5. This leaves the pos
sibility that when Gonzaga broke to Paul the news of a conspiracy, he did so without
the inclusion of Platina's name as one of the conspirators. Cardinal Ammannati-Pic
colomini, in fact, was convinced of Platina's innocence and wrote to Paul in Platina's
favor: Calamari (as note 44) II, 341-343.
the other Academicians, tlieir stu

It is interesting in this regard to ob
reinforces the case for this suppo
Furthermore Pomponio was in Venice and had been there since
the summer. He left Rome because Paul had failed to pay his
teaching stipend (Paul was usually regular with his payments to
others). Pomponio claims he went to Venice to learn Greek and
Arabie letters which is différent from Bianchi's relation of Paul's
charge, reminiscent of that reported against Trebizond, that he went
there to fìnd the Turk62. He was under détention in Venice because,
as the Venetian archives tell us « .. Pomponio is suspected of sodo
my.. » It appears the charge arose over letters addressed to two
Venetian youths which had overtones of sodomy63. The accusations
bring to mind similar ones made against Leonardo da Vinci and
Pietro Aretino; scholars tend to clear Pomponio's name although the
case in his favor is not hard and fast64.
Perhaps Pomponio's troubles hint at a key to the whole affair:
the talk of Callimachus provoking, understandably enough here as
in the past the mouth's of Platina and Trebizond had sparked, Paul
arrest of an annoying and criticai group. Once in hand the Acade
micians could be dealt with for suspiciously licentious, threatenin
and, to Paul's way of thinking, possibly heretical behaviour. Call
machus was not entirely beyond the sort of talk or intrigue tha
might set things off and the speed with which Callimachus' group
took care to get out of town suggests their particular involvement65.
61 Glaucus obviously stili associateci with Callimachus. Apparently Lucidus, [Sept.]
Campanus and a certain Bernardus did also because Platina says in a prison letter
to Lucidus that he, Platina, had warned the three of them to keep away from Calli
machus: SsR, MS 68, fol. 14óv or Vairani, pp. 37-38. Perhaps is it for this reason that
Callimachus does not seem to appear in Platina's list (ca. 1467) of friends who gathered
at his house to dine (see n. 25 of this article). Pomponio claimed in his self-defense
that Platina and Bishop [Giannantonio] Campano warned him to keep away from Cal
limachus and eventually he broke off ali contact with him: Responsio, in Cod. Vat.
lai., 2934, fol. 307-\
62 Zabughin I, 26 and 123 and Laeto, Responsio, foli. 307r'v.
« Pastor IV, 491.
64 Zippel, 185. See Zabughin I, 27, 30-37 and 491 for the basic discussion of this
and Delz (as note 39), pp. 417-440 and Dunston (as note 3), pp. 302-303 and 306 to be
brought up-to-date.
65 Callimachus' disputed Polish intrigues aside, the anti-clerical nature of his
politicai tracts and their already mentioned distance from traditional Christian
politicai morality might be of relevance: Kieszkowski (as note 34), pp. 290-292. See
also in such regards Giuseppe Saitta, Il pensiero italiano nell'Umanesimo e nel Ri
nascimento I, Bologna 1949, 488-490. Kieszkowski (p. 284) cites Platina's De falso et
vero bono as his statement in favor of Epicurean doctrine and his likely guilt for
heresy; however, this is similar to labelling Valla an Epicurean on the basis of his
De voluptate et vero bono. In both dialogues Christianity wins out and in Platina's
case, the work was written in 1471 (Gaida [as note 41, p. xxviii) and its purposely
orthodox nature led Zabughin (I, 69) to suggest it was an expédient effort to refurbish
his réputation in this regard. Patrizi wrote of the conspirators that « ... horum prin
cipem esse callimachum ... » and related that Callimachus, Marcus [Asclep.l, Glaucus
and Petreus fled at night before the others were arrested: Zippel, p. 182.
The heresy charges are very difficult to evaluate. No

documents of the « trial » (if ever there were any) have b
Most of what is known of the charges brought agains
micians as a whole or individually appears in the ambass
ters or can be gleaned indirectly from Pomponio's Res
Platina's (p. 388) account. De Rossi discloses : « And the
cians] are of the opinion that there is not another wo
this one and that the spirit dies when the body dies a
the most important thing is to attend entirely to enj
pleasure... » ; they are materialists, do not go to mass,
saints or perforai any of the other outward articles o
they despise the pope, cardinals and the church in gene
say », he continues, « that Moses was a great deceiver o
his laws, that Christ was a seducer of the people and that
was a man of great cleverness ». No less regretted than
of formai charges is the lack of a spécifie reply to any fo
that might have been brought against the imprisoned A
Pomponio's Responsio pertains only to him and its implica
not to be read too widely; besides, Pomponio was one of
micians most lightly dealt with66.
Pomponio's biographer (Zabughin 1,36) claims that i
ponio's works, there is no trace of paganism, of epicure
immorality. The same could be said of the other Acad
sibly short of Callimachus. However, that fifteenth centu
of some sort of avant-garde earned such a réputation is not
Furthermore is not criticism from secular quarters, or
quarters, of what one considers the excessive wealth of
for example, capable of being interpreted as an attack on
itself?
Aside from whatever eyebrow raising activities in which they
may have indulged but of which they have left no record, it did not
« Quoted from letter of 29 February in Pastor IV, 484: Bianchi gives similar
charges. Zabughin (I, 27-29) answers some of these accusations: he discusses the
Responsio and the issue of Pomponio's orthodoxy on I, 47-58; see also Isidoro Ca
rini, La ' Difesa ' di Pomponio Leto, Bergamo 1894. Eugenio Garin thinks the ambas
sadors, in relation to the heresy charges, were probably engaged in some « esagera
zione polemica » : L'umanesimo italiano, Bari 1952, 67. Platina also has a number of
the ambassador's accusations and his « replies » to them in his relation of the inter
rogations to which he and Pomponio were subjected {Liber, pp. 380-390); the most
striking beyond what has been already raised in other contexts is the following:
« Veteres academicos sequebamur, novos contemnentes, qui in rebus ipsis nil certi
ponebant. Paulus tamen haereticos eos pronunciavit, qui nomen Academiae vel serio,
vel ioco deinceps commemorarent. Iusta est haec ignominia Platoni, ipse se tueatur »
(p. 389). Keller (as note 4; pp. 1-9 and 14-15) characterizes Paul's reign as a struggle
for orthodoxy and intimâtes, with little direct evidence, the Platonism in the Roman
Academy as a major factor in the arrests; Kieszkowski (pp. 285-290) demonstrates
the contacts Callimachus had with the Platonic Academy at least by 1482. Paoli (as
note 4; especially pp. 343-354) vaguely expresses the belief that the heretical tendencies
of Latin letters is the basic reason for the accusations.
help to have a réputation for im

pany they kept. Niccolò Lelio
libertine character], a diner at Platina's home and a member of the
Second Academy — there is no evidence that he was effectively a
member of the First Academy in 1468 — would be a good case in
point. He seems to have been a friend of both Pomponio and Platina
well before 1468 and was later patronized by the Gonzaga. A teacher
in Rome in 1467, he was, however, involved in académies in Padua
in the summer of 1469 when at least one of the Academicians was
stili in prison67. The flavor of his poetry is given by Ariosto:
Da Cosmico imparasti d'esser ghiotto
di monache e non creder sopra il tetto,
l'abominoso incesto e quel difetto,
pel qual fu arsa la città di Lotto68.
If anyone were to be an example of humanism gone wrong, it would

seem to be Cosmico who, interestingly enough, escaped Paul's notice,
possibly because he was not considered a member of the First Aca
demy in 1468.
An additional argument for the innocence of the Academicians
on the charge of heresy, besides the lack of surviving proof, is the
faci that none of them were convicted, if ever prosecuted, on those
grounds. They were therefore not barred from future clérical pa
tronage in Rome let alone denied their lives 69.
Returning to the catacombe and allowing that the incriminating
grafitti are from the Second Academy, one stili must puzzle over the
intent behind entitling Pomponio « Pontifex Maximus » or Pantaga
thus « Sacerdos Achademiae Romanae ». It is likely that Pomponio
'7 Rossi, Cosmico (as note 12), pp. 104-107 and 112-113; it is difficult to imagine
that Rossi aside, Cosmico was affiliated intimately enough with the Roman Academy
around 1468 to have enabled him to avoid Paul's notice unless Cosmico left Rome
substantially before the arrests yet was considered, unlike Pomponio in this regard,
unworthy of pursuit. That Cosmico actually had to escape is also implausible when
one remembers that Callimachus and Marcus Romanus (Asclepiadeus) only avoided
capture by fleeing to Poland and Africa respectively : Glaucus and Petreius, the other
two who fled, were captured in Italy. Rossi (p. 105) raises the suggestion of some
scholars that Platina's De honesta voluptate was not truly written before his captivity
as Platina had claimed; were this to be so, arguments of intimacy for Cosmico with
the First Academy are hardly weakened: Platina's De flosculis quibusdam linguae
latinae in dialogue form is set at the home of Cosmico and may be dated (Gaida,
p. xi) ca. 1461-1463.
68 Rossi, Cosmico, p. 116; quoted from Ariosto, Rime, sonetti 39. 5-8.
69 Dunston (p. 306) addresses such an argument to the possibilities of employment
with the likes of Sixtus IV. Platina's eventual return to court was not without
incident; Giovanni Battista dal Giudici, Bishop of Ventimiglia, reacted with his
Invectiva Baptistae episcopi Intremeliensis contra Platinam (Cod. Vai. lat. 11761) which
aside from attacks on his character, déclarés Platina's intellect to be too pagan for
the curia (foli. 2r-v). Since Battista and Platina were friends (foli. 3-4 and Gherardi,
p. 98) Zabughin (I, 71-79) may be correct in suggesting that the invective was not
meant in any great seriousness beyond being a stern warning for the future con
sidering Platina's delicate position; see also L'Epinois (as note 4), p. 280 n. 2.
harmlessly chose the title out of its more secularized ancie

of a chief keeper of the rites or mysteries, a meaning w
be granted if the Academicians were as devout a group in
of antiquities as they have been credited to be. In a ded
Pomponio of a 1486 édition of a commentary on Catullu
Parthenio précédés a mention of the Academy with a r
Pomponio as « Pontifex Maximus »70. Pantagathus « Sa
the Academy in the catacombs, looks to be none other tha
Baptista Capranica, nephew of Cardinal Domenico Capranica and
himself a bishop by 147871. Whether the Academician's use of clérical
titles was seriously intended or the appellations were purposely and
sarcastically irreverant names for their own societal officialdom, these
désignations do not appear expressive of heresy72. Jacopo Gherardi
(pp. 98 and 117) seems to have been présent at the Academy pro
ceedings he describes and refers to Pomponio as « princeps sodali
tatis litterariae » and to Demetrio da Lucca as « prefect ». One
wonders if the Academicians took their « titles » as seriously as have
70 Pierre de Nolhac, Recherches sur un compagnon de Pomponius Laetus: Mélan
ges d'archéologie et d'histoire 6 (1886) 141 η. 1: part of the published dedication should
be elucidating enough as to how harmlessly the Academicians must have looked
upon their use of seemingly clérical titles: « Tu igitur, doctissime Pomponi, unicum
saeculo nostro bonarum litterarum oraculum et singularis Camoenarum Antistes, fies
huic dicationi perinde ac Pontifex Maximus, Commentationumque Veronensi patriae
meae dicandarum conceptis verbis vota nuncupabis et tuae nuncupationi omnes cele
berrimi Academiae tuae sectatores respondentes linguis animisque bene favebunt... ».
Calamari (as note 44) II, 336, Patetta (as note 4), pp. 158-161 and Stornaiolo
(as note 53), pp. 70-73 présent fairly convincing evidence in favor of Capranica and
such contemporary published references to Capranica as Gherardi's « Pantagathus Fir
manus antistes » (Storniaiolo, p. 72) tend to place in a new light the inscriptions in
Callisto which involve his name; see also the letter of Gherardi (p. lxxxi) which
opens « Pantagheto episcopo Firmano » and Altieri (as note 16; p. 8) who mentions
« misser Pantagato de Capranica ». In pointing out that Capranica did not become
Bishop of Fermo until 1478, Stornaiolo (pp. 67-68 n. 4) may have failed to keep the
lires burning since the inscription which offends may be of so late a date as 1478.
Stornatolo (p. 70) feels Pantagathus cannot be another suggested identity, Ognibene
da Lonigo (Platina's teacher at Vittorino's school in Mantua) since after 1463 he was
never again in Rome. A « Pantagathus Leonicenus » (apparently the reference which
has suggested Ognibene as the identity of PANTAGATHVS) appears in De honesta
voluptate (as note 11; fol. 66v) not as a listed member of the dîners Platina has
entertained around 1467 but as someone who does not eat peas — this Platina might
know from his days at Mantua two décades before. Pomponio's De magistratibus,
sacerdotiis et legibus, a compendium of the chief offices of ancient Rome, is dedicated
to « M. Pantagathus»; Laeto, Opuscula (as note 12), fol. if. An adequate explanation
for the « M » is stili needed although if one renders it « Magister » instead of « Misser »
then Ognibene is the probable identity.
72 See also Appendix II on « Campanus Antistes Precutinus ». In the collection
at Savignano sul Rubicone is a. short poem « Pomponius Infortunatus ad Platynam
Infelicem, Idem ad Auglustilnum de maffeis » in which Pomponio uses « vates » not
in any literal liturgical way nor with a sense of sarcasm but in the classical manner
(as note 29 ; fol. 145r). Keller suggests that the « Vatum Princeps » in the catacombs
refers not to Aemelius but Pomponius; the positions of the two names argue against
this; anyway, Keller cites (as note 4; p. 21 η. 1 and p. 25) a « public» and harmless
classical-style usage of « vates », this time an epitaph on Pomponio by Palladius
Soranus which ends : « Laetus erat Romae vates sublimis et idem/Rhetor nunc campis
laetior Elysiis ».
some scholars. In any event Kel

titles were common to Académ
To the claim that the Academ
secret73, the reply is that they
several times in his History of
regard to the catacomb of Callisto where the supposedly most
damaging inscriptions are located and, it might be remembered, where
his name is not to be found. He says, with the same enthusiasm
with which he spoke of visiting pagan antiquities elsewhere in the
book, that he had been to that catacomb with certain of his friends
for the sake of religion where yet might be seen the tombs of the
martyrs and so on (p. 33). Whether or not the man is protesting
too much, visiting this cemetery was not then a common practice
and one would expect that had he wished to keep the matter quiet,
he would not have publicised the Academy's visits. In view of ali
that has been argued on this point, the catacombe could not have
been the secret meeting place for conspiratorial débauchés that some
have thought them to be; in fact one might wonder whether with,
say Minutius, grafitti as a means of expression did not bring out
the devil in him as it so often does to people.
In accounting for the conspiracy and the heresy charges then
it seems, simply enough, that the Academicians had been problems
for Paul in a number of senses and that they had acquired bad
réputations on matters that were sensitive points with him and, char
acteristically, given the opportunity he used the rod with a firm hand.
The fear he commanded is évident throughout the Academy's prison
letters — it was not until after his death that the Academicians de
monstrated any sense of poise or courage in their defense. The
attacks on his réputation has given them the last laugh but in playi
the stern schoolmaster and keeping them humbly in line, his lau
may have afforded the greater pleasure.
73 De Rossi, La Roma, I, 8, Brownlow and Northcote {as note 4) I, 30 and Keller

p. 21 provide examples of this sort of attitude although they are aware of Platin
references to the visits in his history.
Appendix I
« Inscriptions » Arranged by Catacomb and by Section in Whic

Are Found According to G. B. De Rossi, La Roma 1,3-674
CALLISTO:
1475 XV Kt POMPON!^. PONT. MAX.: MANILIV RO

FeB [In Caius]
PANTAGATHVS
MAMMEIVS PANTAGATH^ SACER
DOS ACHADEMIAE. ROM
PAPIRIVS [In
Basilichetta]
AEMILIVS VATVM PRINCEPS75
MINICIN^
POMP. BARSELLIN9
AEMILIVS
VNANIMES
HERCIN — POMP — DOMINICVS DE CECCHINIS
MANILIVS RO
PERSCRVTATORES
MAMEIVS
ANTIQVITATIS
REGNANTE
POM. PONT. MAX
PAPIRI^ MATTE^ [N.L.]
MINICINVS
PANTHAGATHVS
MINVTI^
VNANIMES
ROM. PVP. DELITIE
ANTIQVITATIS AMATORES
ANTONI^ MAR
PRETESTATO :76
ORION
PRISCILLA:
POMPONIVS LAETVS
PARTHENIVS PRIAMVS PETRVS PARTHENIVS [In
PAMPHILVS IO. BAPTISTA MAXENTIVS Annunciazione]
MATHIAS POMPONIVS ORION
CAECVS [N.L.]
74 A broken line means that the inscriptions occur in the same crypt while a
broken line with dots signifies that the inscriptions do not so occur. « N.L. » marks
an inscription that was not located by the author or the staff at the relevant catacomb
and therefore appears to have been seen only by De Rossi. De Rossi (L'accademia,
pp. 82-83 η. 4) also mentions finding the names Cybeles, Pavlvs and ρωμφεους; he
identifies the first two as Manilius Rhallus and Paulus Marsus respectively and déclinés
to guess at the third. I have done little more than to mention these names both
since I could not locate the inscriptions and because De Rossi's failure to say more
and to record them more prominently make me suspicious of their relevance to the
other inscriptions; for now they do not seem to affect matters much.
75 De Rossi (La Roma I, 5) states that this inscription appears in a crypt not far
from Basilichetta ; the inscription could not be found by me or by Ps. Cuomo and
Mazzali.
w P. Umberto M. Fasola, Secretary of the Pont. Comm. di Archeologia Sacra in
SS. MARCELLINO AND PIETRO:
POMPONIVS
PLATINA
FAB.... CAM Ρ AN VS ANTISTES PRECVTINVS
DEIPHILVS
VOLSCVS 77
RVFFVS
POMPONIVS
FABIVS
FABIANVS
PARTENOPEVS
HISTRIVS
PERILLVS
LETE
CALPVRNIVS
RVFFVS BIS FVIT
About Which De Rossi (1,4-5) Is Unsure in Assigning

« Inscriptions »
to the Academy and Ones Which Were Added by His Brother Stefano
in Descrizione ragionata del Cemetero di Callisto, in La Roma II, 89-92.
CALLISTO:
G. B. De Rossi
VATIN HIC FVIJ ILLE THOMAS

IVS HIC NVNC PCLARVS IN VRB
FVIT [N.L.]
TREBONIVS78 [N.L.]
Stefano De Rossi79
PARTHENIVS PARTHENIVS
GALLVS [N.L.] GALLVS r.TT .
MATHIAS LN-LJ
THOMAS
Rome, told me that he knows of no one who has ever located this inscription
Rossi (La Roma I, 4) noted that Orion is written in true graffito and not carbon
is the rest of the inscription.
77 This inscription was confìrmed via a photograph (Lau H36) from the arc
of the Pont. Comm.; it is obvious from the photograph that the inscrip
arranged differently from the others in that it is spread out and irregular: this
it highly inconvénient to represent properly on paper and therefore De Rossi's
ing has been followed here.
7s This could be George of Trebizond (see n. 58) although I would have greater
hésitations than De Rossi about assigning the inscription to the Academy at ali: this
« calumniator » of Plato was not on the best of terms with the Pius II/Bessarion
crowd and besides, we have nothing to tie him directly to the Academy.
79 I was unable to confirm whether or not the names which Stefano De Rossi
found comprised whole inscriptions — he claims that they were barely visible when
he uncovered them. Since there are no societal references here, it is difficult to
« Inscriptions » Not Located by the De Rossi Br
CALLISTO:
[To the left and on the same wall as the

Basilichetta inscription on page 143] : PAPIRIVS
DOMINICVS DE CECCHINVS MINVCINVS
1475
MANILIVS. RO.
CAROLVS
MATTEVS
RO.
[On the adjoining wall to the right of the

above and thus opposite the entrance]: MANILIVS
[On the wall opposite the main POMPONIVS81 HERCIN

body of inscriptions]: MCCCX
MENS. ΙΑΝ.
PRISCILLA:&
PARTHENIVS
MAXENTIVS ORION
POMPONIVS
BARTHOLOMEO
MATHIAS
CAECIVS «
assign the inscriptions themselves definitely to the Academy although it is likely

that ties might exist through PARTHENIVS: for this reason the names appear in
Appendix II.
so Ali of these variations from De Rossi resuit from a trip to Rome in 1977; for
their very generous and invaluable assistance in and out of the catacombs the follow
ing deserve mention: Bennedettine di Priscilla; P. Cuomo and P. Mazzali at the
catacomb of Callisto and the already mentioned P. Umberto M. Fasola.
81 This inscription is trae graffito and scratched into the wall unlike the others
which were written on the walls with perhaps the burnt ends of torches or some
form of charcoal. The date is inexplicable but it must at least be fìfteenth century
since, as I was reminded by my friend Dr. Peter Spring, the fourteenth century
did not use that sort of Roman letter.
82 Ali of these names are trae graffiti also. For the sake of clarity, the inscript
as recorded by De Rossi is reproduced in addition to those names he inexplicably
missed. Those he disregarded seem to resuit from a later visit of the Academicians
to the same area and appear to be addenda.
83 The imperfect scratching of the fourth letter of this name makes it difficult
to decipher; nevertheless it appears to be more a « C» than an « L». The theft in
London of my camera and film eliminated any possibilities for further study using
the photographe I had taken.
Appendix II
Academicians' Names in the Catacombs and Their

Identities
Catacomb84 Name
AEMILIVS = Paolo Emilio Boccadella
Philippe Monnier, Le Quattrocento I, Paris 1908, 19. The

most obvious source for this identification is a collection of
poems by Boccabella dedicated in 1478 to Platina: Ottob. lat. 2280,
foli. 109r-127r, especially fol. 117r.
ANTONIVS MAR = Marco Antonio Sabellico
De Rossi (La Roma 1,6) first made what seems to be the

most plausible choice, Sabellico, one of Pomponio's more famous
studente and one who was very much involved in the Second
Academy: Sabellico's letter to Mauroceno in Laeto, Opuscula (as
note 12), foli. xvf-xviiv.
BARSELLIN9 = Barsellinus = Nicola Barzellone?
Barzellone is one of the speakers in Altieri's Li Nupt. (as

note 16); see especially p. 146 on possible ties to the Academy.
BARTHOLOMEO = Bartolomeo Manfredo?
It is unlikely that this is Platina since both he and his con

temporaries are consistent in the use of the name Platina in lieu
of Bartolomeo or Sacchi. The best candidate is Bortolomeo
Manfredo Aristofilo who recited verses in Platina's honour in 1482
on the first anniversary of his death and who also eventually
succeeded to his post as Vatican librarian: Diversorum... in Pla
tina, De hon. volupt. (as note 11), foli. HOr-llP.
CAECVS = Callimachus
De Rossi (La Roma 1,4 n. 4) suggested that this is Callimac

whom Platina called « Caeculus » in his Liber (as note 4; p. 3
Platina also called presumably Callimachus by this name in De
hon. volupt. fol. 131v: the diminuative probably served the same
purpose as it does in a prison letter where Platina calls Calli
machus « homunculus »: SsR fol. 151v or Vairani, pp. 42-43.
84 Above each abbreviation will be found in parentheses the number of times
the name occurs in any particular catacomb. The abbreviations are « C » for Callisto,
« Pe » for Pretestato, « Pi » for Priscilla and « M+P » for SS. Marcellino and Pietro.
CAECIVS = Giuliano Cecio
This name was difficult to discipher as was noted in Append

If the less likely CAELIVS reading is chosen, then the only s
reference I could find is to « Caelius noster » in Platina, De
volupt., foli. 90r, 96v and 122v where we learn of his weight p
(Callimachus, Liber, p. 382, also had this problem). More plau
is Giuliano Cecio whom Altieri (pp. 25-26) Pomponio's former
student identifies as « mio Iuliano Cecio », a Roman poet who is
surely the same « Cecio mio » or « Caecius » with whom Pomponio
corresponds in Ottob. lat. 1982, foli. 24v-25r, one of the letters
discussed in Appendix III.
CALPVRNIVS = Ioannes Calphurnius of Brescia?
The only humanist I could find of suitable name is Ioannes

who taught at Padua (but who was once supposedly a student of
Ognibene's): Spitz (as note 23), p. 12.
CAMPANVS ANTISTES PRECVTINVS = Giannantonio Cam

pano
Bishop of Cortone and of Teramo. Teramo is located in what

was called Praecutium in classical times: di Bernardo (as note 9),
pp. 172-173 η. 3 and p. 179.
CAROLVS = Carlo Berardi da Cesena? or Carlo Muto?
Both suggestions are guesses : see Berardi's panegyric on

Platina in Diversorum... in Platina, De hon. volupt., fol. 120r;
Muto appears as one of Altieri's intimâtes and as a speaker in
his dialogue Li Nuptiali.
DEIPHILVS = ?
(V)
DOMINICVS DE CECCHINIS = Domenico Ceci?
Zabughin (as note 4; 1,5) notes that the Ceci who had been
made a cardinal by Paul III had been a student of Pomponio's.
This would be Pomponius Ceccius and it may be assumed that
Domenico is a relation of his within this Roman family.
FAB... = Fabio (Ambustus) Mazzatosti or Fabio Pelimi da

Narni
FABIVS
Most scholars have thought FABIVS to be Fabio Mazzatosti

for whom the greater documentation of associations with the
Academy survive; however, he seems to have too young to have
been a member of the First Academy: Zabughin II, 18-19. Monnier

1,192, De Nolhac (as note 17), p. 200, Campano's letter to him in
Op. omn., Epist. 6 (as note 26), fol. hviv; and poems of Callima
chus such as those in Cod. Vat. lat. 2869, foli. 63v and 83r and
Vat. lat. 2031, foli. 35r and 78r. However if the theory that the
grafitti in M+P are pre 1475 holds, then an equally valid guess
for FABIVS is Fabio Pellini who appears in the list of diners in
Platina's De hon. volupt.
FABIANVS = Fabio Mazzatosti or Fabiano Benzi di Monte

pulciano
FABIANVS only appears in an inscription with FABIVS and
this might suggest that FABIANVS refers to the younger of the
two people thought to be FABIVS, namely Fabio Mazzatosti. De
spite this the most likely identity is Fabiano Benzi who was a close
friend of Giannantonio Campano at the court of Pius II and a
member of the circle at Ammannati-Piccolomini's house: di Ber
nardo, pp. 142, 168 and 200. The appearance together of Ruffus
and Fabianus in an epigram by Octavius Cleophilus indicates that
« Fabianus » was a conventional usage for this individuai: Cod.
Vat. lat. 5163, fol. 58".
GALLVS = Philippus de Ugnarne ? or Nicola Gallo?

Our only clues are the two references to a « P. Gallus » and
a « Gallus noster » in Platina's De hon. volupt., foli. 94" and 53v
respectively; it is to be wondered if they are the same person.
Depending on whether GALLVS is a reference to a Frenchman or
merely the Latinization of the Italian surname Gallo, we have
Philippus or Nicola; De Rossi suggests the latter of the two:
L'accademia, p. 82 n. 4.
HERCIN = Gottifredi? or Conrad Celtis?
HERCIN obviously stands for what came to be a Latin name

for much of centrai Germany, that is Hercynia or Hercynia silva.
HERCIN is probably using for a name, much as was done by
Platina, the Latinization of his place of origin. The likely can
didate by documentation is one Gottifredi of Nuremberg (see
p. 123). Otherwise, few of the better known humanists from
centrai Germany seem to have been in Rome at a sufficiently early
date; one possibility is Conrad Celtis whose associations with the
Academy extend to having promoted « sodalitates » on the Roman
model, who wrote of being from « Hercynia » and who devoted a
long chapter to the Hercynian Foresi in his Norimberga: Spitz
(as note 23), pp. 15, 40, 4547, 56 and 97. It is difficult to say
whether HERCIN is the « Germanicus noster » of Platina's De
hon. volupt., foli. 93r and 127v. The least probable person, especially
if the inscription is of the 1470's, is Pomponio's student of the
later Second Academy years discussed by Friedrich GUldner, Jakob
Questenberg, Ein deutscher Humanist in Rom: Zeitschrift des Harz
Vereins fiir Geschichte und Altertumskunde 37 (1904) 213-276,
especially pp. 221 and 234-239.
HISTRIVS = ?
IO. BAPTISTA = Giovanni Baptista Pantagato dei Capranica

or Giambattista Almadiano da Viterbo
Stornaiolo (as note 53; p. 76) believes I. BAPTISTA is more

likely to be Capranica and explains the use of IO. BAPTISTA
instead of Pantagathus as being the resuit of a visit made at a
différent time with différent companions: this would reinforce
my suspicion that a major break exists between Callisto's « officiai »
inscriptions and the others. On the other hand Patetta (as note 4;
pp. 161-162) feels that the use of the name Pantagathus by Ca
pranica leaves us with Almadiano for IO. BAPTISTA. Almadiano
was one of the people who spoke at the gathering organized by
Demetrio da Lucca on the anniversary (1482) of Platina's death;
in his panegyric he stated that it was thirteen years earlier (1469)
when at Bessarion's house he first had encountered Platina (see
n. 11). Lombroso (as note 4; p. 230) first suggested Almadiano
for IO. BAPTISTA although he misdated the anniversary as 1481.
Without stronger evidence it is both impossible to discount either
of these men and, with such a common name, easy to add others.
LETE = Giulio Pomponi Leto?

There is little to suggest that this could be other than Pom
ponio. The spread out and irregular nature of the M+P inscription
leaves the implication that not only Ruffus « BIS FVIT ». Other
wise the name is a complete enigma.
MAM(M)EIVS = Alexander Mammeius

The one reference to a Mammeius that could be readily found
aside from the catacombe is the already cited poems dedicated
(1478) by Boccabella to Platina which includes one to Alexander
Mammeius: Ottob. lai. 2280, foli. 109r-127r.
MANILIVS = Sebastiano Manili da Roma and/or Ma

MANILIVS RO nilio Cabacio Rallo
The three occurences of a MANILIVS RO are possibly re

ferences to Sebastiano Manili da Roma who was a friend and
pupil of Pomponio: Lumbroso, pp. 231-232. The MANILIVS found
in the Basilichetta section of Callisto could be Sebastiano Manili
again but the lack of RO for Romanus could mean that, négligence
aside, Manilius Spartanus was intended. This, of course, opens
the problem of the failure of MANILIVS to use Spartanus and
the only way out is the fact that Manilius Spartanus (Manilio
Rallo) was by far the older and more renowned of the two. The
whole issue is further entangled by Rallo's use of Romanus also;
in his case it was due to his long residence in Rome dating from
his arrivai in Italy in 1459: A. Altamura, L'umanesimo nel mez
zogiorno d'Italia, Florence 1941, p. 168. As it is ali evidence show

far greater involvement in the Academy on the part of Rallo; in
fact we have nothing to indicate Sebastiano's membership beyond
the inscriptions. For example we have a poem « Ad Demetrium
de morte sodalis Manillius Rassus Spartanus », Cod. Vat. lat. 3352,
fol. 141r and we also have a panegyric on Platina by Rallo delivered
on the anniversary of his death: (Diversorum..., fol. 120r). It is
possible that ali the references in the catacombs are to Rallo;
Patetta (pp. 162-163) présents no special evidence in making this
point. De Rossi further crédits Rallo with CYBELES; see n. 74.
MAT(T)HIAS = ?
There is no evidence available which ties a Mathias to the

Academy although there are a couple of people in Rome who
might be worthy of exploration among whom are Matthias Pal
mieri and the Roman poet Matthias Mutio (Bibl. Vat., Reg. lat.
1991, foli. 68v-69r).
MATTEVS RO = ?
MAXENTIVS - ?
MINlèlNVS =
MINVTIVS = see PARTHENIVS
ORION = ?
A starting point might be to take a closer look at one familiar

of the household of Sixtus IV, Orius de Villanova: Bertòla (as
note 26), p. 5.
PAMPHILVS = ?
PANT(H)AGATHVS = see n. 71.
PAPIRIVS = ?
PAPIRIVS MATTEVS
This is probably the Papirius who is one of the correspond

ants in Ottob. lat. 1982 (see Append. Ili), foli. 43v-44r; the name
might be a play off the ancient Roman gens, Papirius.
PARTENOPEVS = Giannantonio Campano? or Francesco Por

cellio de' Pandoni?
Considering both that Partenopea is nothing but the Lati

nization of a city as fertile in humanist associations as Naples
and that nothing but PARTENOPEVS remains as evidence for the
use of the name by an Academician, any attempted identification
might be guess work. One possiblity is Bishop Campano who
had strong associations with that city beyond his having been
made Bishop of Crotone which was in the Kingdom of Naples
(di Bernardo, pp. 35 and 118). Having one obvious appearance of
Campano in M+P increases what must remain a suspicion. More
plausible is Porcellio of whom R. Maffei wrote that he carne to
Rome at the same time as Pomponio and Demetrio Calcondila
although Maffei also remarked: « Porcellius poeta Neapolitanus,
verum ipse Romanus dici malebat ubi vixit et extinctus est ad
modum senex » (as note 10; fol. 246v); this présents us with the
same name by origin problem as occurs under MANILIVS. Stili
Altieri does link Porcellio to the Academy (as note 16; pp. 148-149).
PARTHENIVS = Partenio Minucio Pallini da Roma or Anto

nio Partenio da Verona
The more probable identity is Pallini (Lumbroso, pp. 232-2

and my discussion of the catacomb inscriptions in the text h
been premised accordingly: although this assumption might
false, fortunately such a circumstance would make no material
impact on my overall conclusions to that section. It is De Nolhac
(as note 70; pp. 140-141) who adds Antonio Partenio and leaves
us with the implication that Pallini used Minutius as a means of
distinguishing himself from Antonio who was a member of the
Second Academy only.
PERILLVS = see n. 11.
PLATINA = Bartolomeo Sacchi da Piadena
POMPONIVS = Giulio Pomponio Leto
POMP. BARSELLIN9 = see BARSELLIN9.
RICHARD J. palermino
PRIAMVS PETRVS = ?
De Rossi (La Roma 1,4) names Pietro Sabino and later (L'ac
cademia, p. 86) adds Demetrio da Lucca; Lumbroso (p. 235) gives
Pietro Marsi. Neither scholar documents these attributions and
it can only be assumed that they are made on the basis of the
name Pietro. If that is so, then Demetrio da Lucca can be im
mediately eliminated (see Append. IV) and the other two remain
as educated guesses.
RVFFVS = Antonio Ruffo or Matteo Ruffo da Verona
Antonio is the more likely of the two and appears in Platina's

often mentioned list of diners (n. 25); on Matteo see Robert
Montel, Un bénéficier de la Basilique Saint-Pierre de Rome: De
metrio Guasselli ' custode ' de la Bibliothèque Vaticane: Mélanges
de l'École Française de Rome, Moyen Age 85 (1973) 432 η. 1.
THOMAS = ?
With little evidence for tying them to the Academy,

have suggested Tommaso Inghirami (Zabughin 1,42 and 11,376
n. 61 and Lumbroso, p. 238) and Thomas Astyus (Patetta, p. 165
who might have been led astray by Tiraboschi on Inghirami's
date of birth). While we are bandying names about we should
not forget one of Platina's brothers, Tommasino, who came to
Rome in 1481 (Luzio and Renier [as note 4], p. 440).
VOLSCVS = Antonio Costanza Volsco da Piperno

Della Torre (as note 9), p. 7.
Appendix III
Letters of the Roman Academy
There are three major manuscript collections of Academy letters

« collections » which have been printed. The manuscripts are at
sul Rubicone, Biblioteca Comunale, MS 68, foli. 132r-151v: this collectio
letters to and from Platina during his period in prison in 1468; at C
University, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 166, foli. 79r-133v and 135
these are letters to and from Rodrigo Sanchez, Castellan of Castel San
and they provide a broader sélection of letters for the various im
Academicians. Finally there are letters at the Vatican Library, Cod. O
1982, foli. 24r-50v: these, unlike the others, are letters of the Second
That final group of letters, hitherto seemingly ignored by schol
being cited in P. O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum II, London 1967, 737, deserve
further study beyond the purposes for which I have cited them in this article
and beyond the few words I shall give them here. For our purposes it might
be worth noting that on the basis of the events related [for ex

letter to Caecio on foli. 24r-25r where he alludes to his medicai and other
difficulties arising from a tough time during « la sachetta di Roma » by
Colonna (ca. 1482-1484) and to his trip to Germany (see p. 123 of this arti
some idea can be had of the dates appropriate to these letters. The trouble is
that these copies are imperfect: they are in the same miserable hand throughout
and are written in both Italian and Latin. Since the originals, certainly at
least for Pomponio and Platina, would have been in Latin, we can only wonder
if these were copies for the purposes of some sort of translation exercises —
the Latin is « corrupted » by Italian, something Pomponio and Platina never
exhibit, and this makes one suspicious of the faithfulness of these letters to
the originals.
There are two groups of printed letters: Pomponio's letters from the CUL
manuscript, foli. lllv-124r — these appear in Creighton (as note 20) III, 276
284 (see the note on p. 376 of Corpus Christi College's Catalogue of Manuscripts)
— and the greater part of Platina's prison correspondence. The latter appears
in Vairani, pp. 30-66. Ali of the Platina letters in the Cambridge manuscript
also appear in Vairani; due to this and to the fact that both the Cambridge
letters and those in Vairani are alike in having summaries of the letters, similar
summaries in fact, at the head of each letter implies that they have a common
parent. To hammer the point home the Cambridge collection has a letter from
Sanchez to Platina (foli. 103v-lllv) which is not in the Savignano manuscript.
In the same vein Savignano has two letters which are not in Vairani (Platina
to Paul II, foli. 134r-135r and Platina to Sanchez, foli. 150r*v). Also the actual
order in which the letters are presented in Vairani and the Cambridge collection
have more in common with each other than they do with the Savignano letters.
Finally the texts of the letters in Vairani and at Cambridge have fewei
différences between them than they do with those at Savignano (for example
compare the letter of Platina to Sanchez at SsR, foli. 137r*v with Vairani, pp. 48
49 and CUL, foli. 84^-850·
The only noteworthy point of similarity between Savignano and Vairani
is that they both have the incomplete « Platina Valliscare » letter and they
both also have it end at the same point (foli. 151v and 4243 respectively); this
letter is not at Cambridge. Ali of this seems to prove that Vairani was not,
therefore, culled exclusively if at ali from the Cambridge collection, that although
Vairani and Cambridge are related, the lineage is not as pure as one might
have guessed and that ali three have some common stock.
Appendix IV
Who Were Lucilius and Petreius?
Next to nothing is known of Lucilius. Gaida (as note 4; p. xx n. 8) nearly

said it ali in remarking both that he was possibly a Cretan and that Zabugh
doubts it. Beyond this observation reference should be made to n. 11 of t
paper where a record was made of his membership in Bessarion's Academ
Attempting to ascertain the identity of Petreius is far more involved
problem and has caused scholars no end of trouble. The first step into
mire logically arises from noticing Patrizi's letter (Zippel [as note 26], p.
remarking on « Petreio » « ... qui Papiensis erat familiaris... » This comme
correlates with the ambassadors' letters in which Petreio divulges the plot to
his patron the cardinal of Pavia. Michael Canensi's rendering of Petreius as
the Academy name for Petrus seems to have been the cause of the assumption
that !Petreio=Pietro=Demetrio Guasselli da Lucca thereby Connecting this Pe

treius of the first batch of attempted arrests, this « familiaris Papiensis », to De
metrio da Lucca. Nowhere, however, do we see a document or any other source
give Demetrio da Lucca the name Pietro Demetrio da Lucca or Pietro Guasselli
nor do we see any documentation of him having been in the household of the
Cardinal of Pavia [finding him there at some time would not be surprising;
Platina and many others of that crowd were there at one time or another but
at the time of the conspiracy, Demetrio was a member of the Platina/Gonzaga
household as per Platina, Liber, pp. 382-383 and Montel (as above, p. 152),
p. 428]: the reasoning that makes Demetrio into Pietro Demetrio and puts
him in the Papiensis household in 1468 seems circular. Frank R. Hausmann
offers the most recent bit of evidence here and uses a letter from Niccolò
Perotti in Spoleto in 1471 to the Cardinal of Pavia to argue that the Cardinal's
old familiar, one Petrus Demetrius, is Demetrio da Lucca who is therefore the
Petreius of the conspiracy and is the Petreius teaching in Rome in 1481-1482
as shown in some other documents which Hausmann publishes: Demetrio
Calcondila — Demetrio Castreno — Pietro Demetrio — Demetrio Guazzetti?:
Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance 32 (1970) 607-611. The letter has this
Petrus Demetrius as being around fifty years old and on p. 611, Hausmann
gives an uncited reference to the death of his Petreus/Demetrius in 1483 at the
age of sixty-three.
In regard to this letter and its line of argument, aside from resisting the
idea of making Platina's student and familiar out to be a year older than
him, there are three levels of evidence to challenge the confusion of the two
men beyond what has already been said. For starters we have a letter from
Pomponio to Poliziano which distinguishes between a Petreus (who is unknown
to Poliziano but who will return books to Pomponio in Rome if Poliziano will
give them to Petreus) and a Demetrius to whom along with the Medici Pom
ponio wishes to be remembered: Laeto, Opuscula (as note 12), fol. xvv. This
latter « Fiorentine » Demetrius is obviously Demetrius Calcondila, teacher and
friend of Poliziano, and this reinforces the identification Hausmann's article
had meant to challenge.
Secondly, and with greater immediacy, we might note the issue of age
and dates. Spécifie documentation, where Demetrio da Lucca is named as
such or by his full name of Demetrio Guasselli, is provided in Montel's article.
Here we learn of Demetrio's death in 1511 (p. 425 η. 1) and of the fact that he
had five brothers and his mother stili living in 1487 (p. 427 n. 2): this information
increases the suspicion that he was much younger than Platina and hence prob
ably not ninety-one years old at death. Additionally Montel (p. 445 n. 3) quotes a
1487 bull of Innocent Vili which recalls Demetrio's twenty-four years in Rome
« ... attenta tanta diuturnitate habitationis per eum in ipsa Urbe facta, civem
Romanum esse decernimus »; this leans slightly against the idea of the travelling
unemployed scholar suggested by Hausmann.
Neverthless a third kind of evidence exists which can be culled from the
registers and documents cited throughout by Montel and Hausmann — the
simple fact that nowhere do we see anyone named as a Demetrio da Lucca
with other than the name Guasselli attached. Also, no such occurence offers
itself when we have both Demetrius and Petreius présent: for example, the
Vatican Library register of borrowers shows a book borrowed in 1481 by one
«Petreius»: Bertòla (as note 26), p. 21; in n. 3 of that page Bertòla suggests
this to be the Petreius of the conspiracy which is most likely correct for it
could hardly be Demetrio da Lucca who is noted throughout those pages in
his officiai library duties as only Demetrius.
Using a similar line of argument that Petreius is not Demetrio is further
established by Egidio da Viterbo since the passage cited in n. 29 in its entirety
reads: « Raptus iccirco in carcarem Pomponius, latinae linguae atque antiqui

tatis observantissimus, raptus et Petreius meus, tantae innocentiae vir, ut quam
quam in nullius religionis verba iurasset, mecum tamen Cyminios saltus in
colere non exhorruerit; rapti Quadrati fratres, raptus Lucius, Platina, Demetrius,
Marsus et alii quam plurimi ». Platina, who should know best of ali our
sources and certainly better than the likes of the seemingly second hand
information in the ambassadors' reports, also provides internai evidence (Liber,
pp. 382-383) in which Platina tells of the capture of « Demetrium Lucensem fa
miliarem meum » at Platina's own house (not at the Cardinal of Pavia's house
nor captured out of Rome) in the second wave of arrests and attempted arrests,
and soon Platina follows this with a snide reference to « Glaucum et Petreium
fugae suae [Callimachus'] comités alteros Gabinos ac Statilios » before return
ing to a mention of « Demetrius » as among those tortured stili followed by
reference (p. 387) to the torture of the by now captured companion in flight
Callimachus, Petreius; Gherardi, who knew Demetrius (as note 10; p. 103) and
who attended the Academy fonctions mentioned in his Diarium, notes in 1482
(p. 98) that Platina had been Demetrio's teacher and their good relations seem
unquestionable; in any event Platina certainly would not have rendered Pietro
« incorrectly » into Latin if that had been Demetrius' name. Zippel (p. 155
n. 2) does not attempi an identification of Petreius but does reprint the docu
mentary notice in the Vatican Archive of Demetrio's release where he is
identified as « Diometrio Guacellis [sic] de luca ». Further contemporary re
ferences to Demetrio as such are in Gherardi (p. 98) and Patetta (pp. 153 and
176); only scholars of a later date put the name Pietro or Petreio to Demetrio.
One candidate worthy of further exploration in the search for Petreius
might be one of the brothers of Callimachus. Patrizi (Zippel, p. 182) has the
four conspirators mentioned on p. 124 escape but of these has Glaucus and a
« frater callimachi » eventually captured. Zippel (p. 182 n. 6) cites evidence
showing one of the brothers of Callimachus to be a « Franciscus Pierius vel
Bonaccursius de Sancto Geminano»: this certainly hints at an identification
particularly when one thinks of Platina's putting Glaucus and Petreius together
as Callimachus' companions in flight. However, that Platina fails to tell us
anything of the fate of the conspirators who fled (two of whom were captured
later as already mentioned) is a glaring though consistent omission.

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THE ROMAN ACADEMY, THE CATACOMBS AND THE CONSPIRACY OF 1468

THE ROMAN ACADEMY, THE CATACOMBS

Summarium. — Academia Romana Iulii Pomponii Laeti saec. XV e mani

The Roman Academy of Giulio Pomponio Leto was a casual as

A step closer to the answer

3 Journal of Religious History 7 (1973) 287-306. The devilishly immense number of

by apologists for Paul to reverse this rôle but it was no

to use their Christian names. In sho

The Roman Academy at the least differed from other

in parentalia, in Platina, De honesta voluptate et valetudine..., Paris 1530, fol. 125r.

example of the scholar happy t

Supposedly he had requested burial upon his death in an ancient

a church, San Salvatore in Lauro)21. Although some of

Essentially two major and contem

is important since it could help to identify inscriptions as b

Awarded a post as an Abbreviat

31 Liber, pp. 369-370.

Demetrius is Demetrio da Lucca or Demetrio Guasselli da Lucca.

members of the circle that had

Platina even goes on to express the commonplace that Achilles would

to pounce. Paul's major interest in antiquities leaned to

by Platina at the expense of

In summary Platina goes on to say that Paul became enraged

Luca's arrest. The Quadrati brothers, imprisoned be

person of the pope... » Four r

since the ultimate source in each case could easily hav

or « officiai » visit to Callisto hig

1477 does ; he was not in Rome 1465-1468 and 1474-147

there had been several disturbance

Should we compound this climate of suspicion w

the other Academicians, tlieir stu

The heresy charges are very difficult to evaluate. No

help to have a réputation for im

If anyone were to be an example of humanism gone wrong, it would

harmlessly chose the title out of its more secularized ancie

some scholars. In any event Kel

73 De Rossi, La Roma, I, 8, Brownlow and Northcote {as note 4) I, 30 and Keller

« Inscriptions » Arranged by Catacomb and by Section in Whic

1475 XV Kt POMPON!^. PONT. MAX.: MANILIV RO

SS. MARCELLINO AND PIETRO:

About Which De Rossi (1,4-5) Is Unsure in Assigning

VATIN HIC FVIJ ILLE THOMAS

« Inscriptions » Not Located by the De Rossi Br

[To the left and on the same wall as the

[On the adjoining wall to the right of the

[On the wall opposite the main POMPONIVS81 HERCIN

assign the inscriptions themselves definitely to the Academy although it is likely

Academicians' Names in the Catacombs and Their

AEMILIVS = Paolo Emilio Boccadella

Philippe Monnier, Le Quattrocento I, Paris 1908, 19. The

ANTONIVS MAR = Marco Antonio Sabellico

De Rossi (La Roma 1,6) first made what seems to be the

BARSELLIN9 = Barsellinus = Nicola Barzellone?

Barzellone is one of the speakers in Altieri's Li Nupt. (as

BARTHOLOMEO = Bartolomeo Manfredo?

It is unlikely that this is Platina since both he and his con

De Rossi (La Roma 1,4 n. 4) suggested that this is Callimac

CAECIVS = Giuliano Cecio