Onofrio Panvinio

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Onofrio Panvinio in a copy of a contemporary painting

Onofrio Panvinio , also Latinized Onuphrius Panvinius (born February 23, 1530 in Verona , † 1568 in Palermo ) was a theologian, church historian and antiquarian ("antiquarian").

Life

Panvinio was born into an impoverished lower nobility family and was given the first name Giacomo. After the death of his father, he entered the Augustinian order at the age of eleven , took the name Onofrio and received a humanistic education. In 1549 he went to Rome to continue his studies. Panvinio came into the circle around Cardinal Marcello Cervini, the later Pope Marcellus II. , Who patronized him and encouraged research into church history and Christian buildings. The historia sacra remained Panvinio's second field of activity alongside his antiquarian works.

Alessandro Farnese and members of his court, around 1559

Between 1552 and 1555 he was accepted into the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese . He became its theologian, librarian and most important historian. Panvinio died in April 1568 in Palermo, where he had accompanied his patron to a synod of the Archdiocese of Monreale , of which Farnese was the administrator .

Panvinio was next to Fulvio Orsini a student of the Spanish scholar, lawyer and theologian Antonio Agustín (1516–1586), the future Archbishop of Tarragona, who stayed in Rome until the fifties of the 16th century. Agustín had a circle of scholars - mostly humanists - around him, but he had a particularly close relationship with Panvinio and Orsini. He helped him with the division of his Commentarii from 1558, in the search for a publisher, and recommended a trip to Germany to visit the churches, libraries and antiquities there, which Panvinio probably did in 1559. During his stay in Venice from October 1557 to September 1558, Panvinio met the Venetian printer and humanist Paolo Manutius (1512–1574), whose excellent knowledge of Latin prompted him to bring Manutius to Rome in 1561, where he was appointed head of the papal printing press.

Another close friend of Panvinios was the humanist Gabriele Faerno (1511–1561) from Cremona, through whom he met his most important draftsman and engraver, Étienne Dupérac . At first he was very close friends with the Neapolitan architect and antiquarian Pirro Ligorio , because Ligorio, on the mediation of Antonio Agustín, had him copied very generously from his manuscripts. When Panvinio finally published representations based on Ligorio's notes, Ligorio accused him of plagiarism , whereupon their relationship cooled noticeably and turned into enmity. His closest friend at the Farnese court was the physician and personal physician Alessandro Farneses, Girolamo Mercuriale from Forlì . Its publications dealt mainly with medical questions, but also with ancient physical exercises and the ancient sports and bathing culture.

Panvinio was highly valued by the humanists of his time. Paulus Manutius called him un mangione dell'antichità ("glutton of antiquity"), Scaliger the omnis pater historiae ("father of all history").

plant

1557 appeared with the Fasti et Triumphi Romanorum Panvinios reconstruction of the Roman consular and triumphal fasts that had been excavated in 1546 in the Roman Forum . The collection and antiques dealer Jacopo da Strada arranged for them to be published by Agustín . Since he was very dissatisfied with the result of the publication - it contained many bookbinding errors and the illustrations were simply taken from an earlier work by Strada - he revised it and published it in 1558 under the title Fastorum libri V etc., dedicated to his patron Alessandro Farnese once out, this time without pictures. Panvinio tried in his antiquarian treatises to systematize Roman antiquity. To do this, he took up the concept, which originally went back to the Roman writer and scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC – 27 BC ) and was re-established in the work Roma triumphans by Flavio Biondo (1388–1463) : In it, Biondo traces the Roman culture from its gods to the cults, from the state institutions to the military, in order to then turn to the private life of the Romans and to triumph. In the treatise Reipublicae Romanae commentarii tres of 1558 Panvinio treated the state and cult. To a large extent, his book is still in the tradition of the magistrate lists that constitutional research has repeatedly presented since the 15th century. In the following years he worked on seven treatises: De feriis, De sacris epulis, De sacrificiis et divinatione, De ludis circensibus, De ludis scenicis sive de theatralibus, De munere gladiatorio and De agonibus . De ludis circensibus of the above-mentioned treatises was published long after Panvinio's death.

His major project, namely to present a system of Roman antiquity, can only be reconstructed from his manuscripts - collected in Codex Vaticanus Latinus 6783: the Antiquitatum Romanarum libri LX he initially planned grew to 80, then to 100 by his death in 1568 Books on. They should appear as Antiquitatum Romanarum libri centum in five volumes: the first volume should deal with the topography of ancient Rome, the history of civilization should comprise volumes two and three, the fourth part should deal with the Roman inscriptions, and the fifth volume should contain a comprehensive Roman history from the founding of the city to the present day (Pope Pius V ).

Panvinio wanted to illustrate his planned treatise on the religion of the Romans De antiqua Romanorum religione sive superstitione libri XV cum iconibus with illustrations. He hired three artists: Étienne Dupérac , Ercole Setti (1530-1617) and an unknown artist (called "L'Anonyme de l'Ara Pacis"). Her drawings were made between 1565 and 1566 and have been preserved in the Codex Orsini (also Codex Ursinianus, Ms. Vat. Lat. 3439): It contains building plans, relief drawings, ancient inscriptions and the oldest copies of the fragments of the Roman city map from the period between 203 and 211 AD Forma Urbis Romae , which were only discovered in 1562 in the Roman Forum. A small part of the drawings could come directly from Ligorio and the antiquarian Stephan Pighius (1520–1604), but the main part has been copied from the Libro dell'antichitá Ligorios and provided with handwritten notes by Panvino. The codex is named after the last owner, Fulvio Orsini . After his death it came to the Vatican Library around 1600. In the 17th century, numerous copies were made from it for the Museo Cartaceo des Cassiano dal Pozzo .

His plan of the ancient Rome Antiquae urbis imago , published in 1565, also seems to have been copied by Ligorio, because the content and method of presentation are very much based on his Rome plan from 1553: Panvinio also locates the Roman Forum between the Capitol and Palatine Hill , depicts the geographical conditions orographically ( ie the exact location of landscape elevations and depressions) and allows the ancient monuments and buildings, supplemented and reconstructed, to protrude from the ground. His treatise on the Roman triumph Amplissimi ornatissimique triumphi uti L. Paulus ... etc. appeared posthumously in 1571. It contains a labeled diagram that shows a Roman triumphal procession in all its details on four panels . Contrary to the title, this is not based on archaeological monuments, but only based on information from ancient writers, as Panvinio writes in the explanation of the illustration, and was engraved by Dupérac as early as 1565. His best-known work, De ludis circensibus , did not appear until 1600. It contains 28 plates, which Dupérac had also engraved in 1565. The panels shown can be divided into four categories: views of monuments in ruins, plans, diagrams and illustrations of archaeological material. In the introduction Panvinio explains what has been handed down by ancient writers on this, and tries to find an etymology for the word ludus . Then he deals with the origin and design of the games. Then he reconstructs the Circus Maximus and other racetracks in Rome. He benefits from his knowledge of Roman topography. The first of the two books is devoted only to the chariot race, of which various views are shown. The illustrations attached to clarify the description come from archaeological evidence - coins, accounts and reliefs - most of which can be identified. He mostly took the coin images from Ligorio's manuscripts. He will have got hold of the copies of the erotic reliefs through Pighius . Panvinio or Dupérac also took over the method of creating graphs from Ligorio. With the help of coins, images that can be found on ancient monuments, and according to the ancient writers Naumachien, they reconstruct the interior of the Circi and the course of events there, as he notes on the diagrams. In some cases they supplement these “didactic compilations” (Herklotz) with scenes all'antica if they do not have any authentic pictorial models of ancient monuments available. These scenes are graphically integrated into the individual motifs faithfully copied from the monuments, so that a “scenic whole” (Herklotz) is created. Panvinio then explains the rules of chariot racing, reports on the people and horses involved and the prizes to be won. In this case, only inscriptions and literary sources serve as evidence. Then he deals with the individual circus facilities in Rome and the hippodrome in Constantinople, again relying on Ligorio, who had also located these nine circuses in Rome. In the second book, Panvinio explains the other spectacles for which the circus facilities provided a backdrop. These include the fistfight, the pompa circensis , the venatio , the ludus troiae , other fighting games ( pugna equestris, pugna pedestris ), naumachia and theater performances. The restrictions and finally the termination of these games at the time of Christianity, but also the survival of individual parts of the ancient circus culture up to that time, conclude the second part of the work. In addition to depictions of ancient coins, it primarily contains diagrams. Some of their representations are very convincing, like the rendering of ancient sacrificial rites, but they also seem downright fantastic, as in the pompa circensis , where the chariots with the idols are pulled by horses together with lions and elephants. The diagrams serve to clarify what was explained in the text, which could not be found in this form on archaeological monuments. This reveals his extensive knowledge of monuments, which was conveyed to him through his drawing collections such as the Codex Orsini. So he used their pictorial compilations, for example a pompa circensis , in the sense of a pictorial overview in order to give an overall view of such a train, which has not been preserved in this form on any ancient monument. To do this, he brings together the pictorial information from several ancient monuments. With the help of these diagrams the manners and customs are to be illustrated; the literary texts alone could not do this.

Panvini's work remains the binding treatise on this complex of topics for almost 200 years.

Historical meaning

It is Panvinio's great achievement that he combined literary sources and epigraphic and archaeological finds in his work . It was thus in line with contemporary antiquarian research, which increasingly also took archaeological realities and finds into account, which ultimately resulted in a combination of text and image documents. In contrast to Ligorio, from whom Panvinio and Dupérac adopted this type of illustration - the diagram - the limits of inventory and reconstruction always remained recognizable.

portrait

A portrait of Onofrio Panvinio, dated around 1555 and attributed to Jacopo Tintoretto , hangs in the Galleria Colonna in Rome. The three-quarter figure in front of a dark background shows him with tonsure , clad in the black Augustinian habit . He is sitting in an armchair with an open leather-bound tome in his hands. Panvinio's thoughtful gaze passes the viewer into the distance.

Fonts

Panvinio, who died at the age of 38 and wrote around 70 books in his short life, is considered to be an important historian of the Renaissance. Some of his works on church history and books on ancient Rome are valued by historians as rich source works. The most important are now available as reprints via Nabu-Books.

  • Fasti et Triumphi Romanorum Romulo rege, usque ad Carolum V. Caes. Aug ... ex antiquitatum monumentis maxima cum fide ac diligentia desumpta , Venice, Jacopo Strada, 1557
The book describes the events of Roman history using coins and is illustrated with many woodcuts.
  • Fastorum libri V. a Romulo rege usque ad Imp. Caesarem Carolum V. Austrium Augustum , Venice Officina Erasmiana 1558.
Revised version of the Fasti from 1557.
  • Epitome pontificum Romanorum a S. Petro usque ad Paulum III. Venice: Strada 1557.
The volume contains a history of the popes from the beginning to the middle of the 16th century and is considered an important source work.
The first volume of the work deals with Roman roads, buildings and aqueducts . The following volumes describe the structure, procedures and foundations of government, administration and society in the Roman Empire.
  • De triumpho commentarius . Venice 1571
  • De Ludis Circensibus , Libri II. De Triumphis Liber Unus. Quibus universa fere Romanum Veterum Sacra Ritusq. Declarantur, ac Figuris Aeneis Illustrantur. Venice 1600. Nachrick Padua 1646.
    • Second edition, with the addition of the philological and historical notes by Johannes Argoli and additions by Niccolò Pinelli: Onuphrii Panvinii Veronensis De Ludis Circensibus Libri II - De Triumphis Liber unus - Quibus universa fere Romanorum veterum sacra, ritusque declarantur, ac figuris aeneis illustrantur, cum notis J. Argoli JUD et additamento N. Pinelli . 1st edition. typis P. Frambotti, Padova 1642 ( google.it ). New edition: Johann Georg Graevius (Ed.), Thesaurus antiquitatum romanarum , IX, Leida, Petrus van der Aa , 1699. ( Online )
  • Battista Platini: Historia delle vite de i sommi Pontefici, dal Salvator Nostro sino Clemente VIII.Scritta da B. Platina, dal PF Onofrio Panvaniano, et da Antonio Cicarelli ... Illustrata con l'Annotationi del Panvinio ... con la cronologia ecclesiastica ... tradotta in lingua italiana, & empiliata dal RM Bartolomeo Dinonigi. [In it:] La Cronologia ecclesiastica del Onofrio Panvinio. Venice, i Giunti , 1606–1607.
The book is equipped with a collection of copperplate engravings with portraits of the Pope.

literature

Web links

Commons : Onofrio Panvinio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.cassiciaco.it/navigazione/monachesimo/monaci/monaci_celebri/panvinio.html
personal data
SURNAME Panvinio, Onofrio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Panvinio, Giacomo (baptismal name); Panvinius, Onuphrius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian theologian, church historian and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1530
PLACE OF BIRTH Verona
DATE OF DEATH 1568
Place of death Palermo