PANNINO, Onofrio. — Erudite historian, born in Verona on 23 Feb. 1530, died in Palermo on 27 April 1568. He entered the Augustinian Hermits in 1544, where he changed his baptismal name Giacomo to Onofrio. In May 1545, the General Seripando took him under his wing. In 1549–50 he was in Rome, where he wrote the Augustiniani Ordinis chronicon, from St Augustine up to 1550. There he formed friendships with the most illustrious scholars of his age in the field of erudition: Antonio Agustin, Ottavio Pantagato, Pier Vettori, Achille Maffei, Gentile Delfino, Annibal Coro, Guglielmo Sirlato, Latino Latini, and especially with Cardinal Marcello Cervini, protector of the Order.
In 1553 he obtained permission to live outside the Order and stayed at the court of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. With him, in June 1556, he left Rome, passed through Venice and Verona, and reached Parma in September. In August 1559, via Mantua, Verona, and Bressanone, he joined Emperor Ferdinand in Augsburg. Upon learning of the death of Paul IV, he returned to Rome at the beginning of September, but did not enter the conclave as a conclavist until Christmas Eve. In 1568 he accompanied Cardinal Farnese on a journey to Sicily and died in Palermo; a monument in the church of Sant’Agostino in Rome commemorates him.
Pannino represents the true type of the erudite scholar who sought to ground himself in the most reliable documentation of antiquity, both sacred and profane, amassing vast materials and observations. He compiled a collection of 3,000 inscriptions, a critical list: Romani Pontifices et cardinales S. R. E. ecc. (Venice 1557); Magistratum aliquot populi Romani a Romulo rege ad Carolum V (ibid. 1557 and 1558); In quinque Fastorum libros commentarii (ibid. 1558); Reipublicae Romanorum libri tres (ibid. 1558); Romanorum principum libri III (Basel 1558); De comitiis imperatoris liber (ibid. 1558); De antiquis Romanorum nominibus (Venice 1558), dedicated to Annibal Caro. In Rome in 1565 he published Ornatissimi triumphi... uti imperatores Romani triumphaverunt, and in 1568 there appeared in Cologne: De sacrorum cleri Ordinum libri and De ritu sepelendi mortuos apud veteres christianos eorumque coemeteriis. Among his unpublished works are De vanorum Pontificis creatione libri X and numerous notes taken while studying and visiting the basilicas and churches of Rome; some of these, concerning the buildings of the Lateran, were published (cf. Ph. Lauer, Le palais de Latran, Paris 1911, pp. 410–90). In 1562 his life of Paul IV appeared, and from 1562 to 1568 that of Pius IV in successive editions revised by him according to changing circumstances. De creatione Pii IV papae, together with the life of the Pope, is also found in Concilii Tridentini, Diariorum, ed. Seb. Merkle, part II, Freiburg im Br. 1911, pp. 575–601. On the historical value of this biography cf. Pastor, VII, p. 652 ff.