GREGORY of CATINO. – Chronicler, born in Catino in Sabina from a noble family around 1060 and died in the abbey of Farfa around the middle of the 12th century. Having entered the monastery of Santa Maria of Farfa as a child, he dedicated his entire life to researching the records of his monastery.
Around 1092, entrusted with reorganizing the archive, he conceived the idea of transcribing all the documents into a single volume and thus compiled the Regestum Farfense, or, as he called it, the Liber gemmiographus sive cleronomialis ecclesiae Farfensis (cod. Vat. lat. 8487 in the author’s hand, except for the last 72 folios written by his nephew Todino; ed. I. Giorgi and U. Balzani, 5 vols., Rome 1879–1914), a precious collection of 1,324 documents relating to the history not only of Farfa but also of the Church and of Italy from the Lombard age to the 11th century. Around 1103, G. wrote the Liber largitorius or L. notarius sive emphuticius (ed. G. Zucchetti, in Regesta chartarum Italiae, Rome 1931), in which he records all the grants and leases made by the abbey. Another work of great interest, in which G. best expresses his personal qualities as a historian, is the so-called Chronicon Farfense (ed. L. Muratori, in RIS, II, part 2, pp. 209–678; PL 127, 333–44; U. Balzani, in Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 33–34, Rome 1903), in which, selecting and condensing the contents of the preceding works, he narrates the events of Farfa by comparing traditions with documents. The last of his works, which he wrote at the age of seventy, is the Floriger chartarum cenobii Farfensis, an index of the principal documents contained in the other three books, of great interest for the topographical indications it provides. Doubtful is the attribution to G. of the Orlhodova defensio imperialis (ed. in MGH, Libelli de lite, imperatorum et pontificum saec. XI et XII conscripti, II, pp. 535–42, cf. p. 702).