Bartolomeo Marliani

Walls and gates of Rome, Antiquae Romae topographia, edition of 1544

Bartolomeo Marliani , also Giovanni Bartolomeo Marliani, (born 1488 in Robbio ; died July 26, 1566 in Rome ) was an Italian scholar of Renaissance humanism , archaeologist and topographer of the city of Rome. His Antiquae Romae topographia, printed for the first time in 1534, was of lasting importance. As a standard work on the topography of Rome, it was reissued until the 18th century and excerpts were given to many other works. In the dispute with Pirro Ligorio about the location of the Roman Forum , he was unable to assert himself, although his assessment was correct.

Life

Section through the Pantheon , Antiquae Romae topographia, edition of 1544

Laocoon group , Antiquae Romae topographia, edition of 1544

Bartolomeo Marliani, son of Gabriele Marliani, studied Greek in Milan with Stefano Negri, a student of the Greek humanist Demetrios Chalkokondyles . He continued his studies at the University of Padua and met the future Cardinal Giovanni Morone . Soon before 1525 he moved to Rome, where Pope Paul III. made a Knight of the Order of St. Peter .

In 1534 he published his main work in Rome, the Antiquae Romae topographia , which is divided into seven books . The work, dedicated to Cardinal Giovanni Domenico De Cupis , deals extensively with the topography of ancient Rome. Marliani relied on a meticulous evaluation of ancient literature and on epigraphic evidence that came into the focus of antiquarian studies from the beginning of the 16th century and thus escaped the lime kilns of Rome. In addition, there was the knowledge that one believed to be able to gain from the beginning "archaeological" investigations, mostly connected with the search for building material. Although the work was full of numerous errors, which Marliani attributed to his absence at the time of printing, it was received so enthusiastically that it saw numerous new editions or excerpts were added to other works.

In the same year François Rabelais published a corrected version dedicated to Cardinal Jean du Bellay , which was printed by the printer and humanist Sebastian Gryphius in Lyon . In Basel in 1538 Thomas Platter added an excerpt from his edition of the topographical writings of Julius Pomponius Laetus and the - non-existent - Publius Victor. In 1544 Marliani got his own new edition, which he enriched with engravings with plans, views and sections of ancient buildings. Subsequent new editions were based on this text version. An Italian edition, translated by Ercole Barbarasa, appeared in 1548, and until the 18th century Marliani's work was reprinted in Italy and other countries, or excerpts were added to the editions of ancient authors such as Titus Livius , Florus or Sallust as explanatory notes.

With the edition of 1544 he had obtained, Marliani withdrew from the papal environment in order to be able to devote himself entirely to his further studies. He took the Augustinian monk's vows and moved into quarters in the Tor Sanguigna near Sant'Agostino in Campo Marzio . As early as 1549 he published the Fasti Capitolini, discovered in 1547 in the Roman Forum . This work was also reprinted, for example an edition supplemented by explanations from the hand of Francesco Robortello , which was printed in Venice in 1555.

In addition to his topographical studies, Marliani devoted himself extensively to Greek writers. Only a first edition of a Sophocles text appeared in print in 1545 , but the manuscripts bequeathed to the convent of Sant'Agostino included works on the Iliad and Odyssey , Hesiod , Aristophanes , Pindar , Strabo , Lucian and Apollonios Rhodios, among others . Much of this work apparently served for Greek lessons at Marliani's private school in Rome.

For the year 1560 membership in the Confraternita degli orfani e delle orfane , supported by his fellow student Giovanni Morone , a charitable institution under the church that looked after orphans, is documented. He himself founded a lay brotherhood , the Compagnia di S. Apollonia , which was confirmed by Pope Pius V in a bull in January 1566, a few months before Marliani's death .

Confrontation with Pirro Ligorio

His topographical studies of ancient Rome, especially the location of the Roman Forum, which he pinpointed in the right place, were overshadowed by a heated argument that Pirro Ligorio instigated. Ligorio, in the words of Christian Hülsen an “architect of renown - the Villa d'Este in Tivoli is his work - as an antiquarian an ambitious dilettante”, localized the forum between the Capitol Hill and the Palatine Hill and made contempt for Marliani's work. This compelled Marliani to insert an addendum in a new edition of his Topographia from 1553 in which he replied to the risen Romulus , who would also claim a different location of the forum: “Romulus, you have just walked through the Lethestrom and therefore have the location of yours forget your own city so much that you chatter the same nonsense as the Strepsiades (Ligorio). ”Since Ligorio supported his theory emphatically and by means of fictitious monuments and inscriptions, his opinion prevailed and remained the real one until the excavations of the early 19th century Location of the forum unknown.

Works

• Antiquae Romae topographia, libri septem. Rome 1534 ( original edition by Google Books; digitized version of the edition by François Rabelais, Lyon 1534).
• Hoc libello haec continentur Sophoclis tragici poetae vita non prius in lucem edita. Eiusdem poetae sententiae pulcherrimae. Rome 1545 ( digitized version ).
• Consulum, dictatorum censorumque Romanorum series una cum ipsorum triumphis, quae marmoribus scalpta in foro reperta est, atque in Capitolium translata. Rome 1549 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Massimiliano Albanese:  Marliani, Bartolomeo. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 70. Rome 2007.

Web links

Wikisource: Bartolomeo Marliani  - Sources and full texts (Italian)

Remarks

1. ^ Christian Hülsen: The Roman Forum. Its history and its monuments. Loescher, Rome 1904, p. 36 ( digitized version ).
2. ↑ Bartolomeo Marliani: Topographiae Urbis haec nuper adiecta. 1553; Translation after Christian Hülsen: The Roman Forum. Its history and its monuments. Loescher, Rome 1904, p. 36.