PANVINIO, ONOFRIO. - Erudite historian, b. at Verona on 23 February 1530, d. at Palermo on 27 April 1568. He entered the Hermits of St. Augustine in 1544, where he changed his baptismal name Giacomo to Onofrio. The general Seripando in May 1545 took him with him. In 1549-50 he was in Rome, where he wrote: Augustiniani Ordinis chronicon, from St. Augustine down to 1550. Here he contracted friendships with the most illustrious scholars in the erudite field of his age: with Antonio Agustin, Ottavio Pantagato, Pier Vettori, Achille Maffei, Gentile Delfino, Annibal Caro, Guglielmo Sirleto, Latino Latini, and particularly 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 joined him at Parma in September. In August 1559, by way of Mantua, Verona, and Bressanone, he reached the emperor Ferdinand at Augsburg. Having learned of the death of Paul IV, he returned to Rome by way of Verona at the beginning of September, but did not enter the conclave as a conclavist before Christmas Eve. In 1568 he followed Cardinal Farnese on his journey to Sicily and died at Palermo; a monument in the church of S. Agostino in Rome commemorates him for posterity.
Fr. P. is the true type of the scholar who intends to rely on the surest documentation of antiquity in both the sacred and the profane field, gathering together vast materials and observations. He compiled a collection of 3000 inscriptions, a critical catalogue: Romani Pontifices et cardinales S. R. E. etc. (Venice 1557); Magistratum aliquot populi Romani a Romulo rege ad Carolum V (ibid. 1557 and 1558); In quinque Fastorum libros commentarii (ibid. 1558); Republiose Romanorum libri tres (ibid. 1558); Romanorum principum libri III (Basel 1558); De comitis imperatoris liber (ibid. 1558); De antiquis Romanorum nominibus (Venice 1558), dedicated to Caro. In Rome in 1565 he published Ornatisimi triumphi... uti imperatores Romani triumphaverunt, and in 1568 there appeared at Cologne: De sacrorum cleri Ordinum libri and De ritu sepeliendi mortuos apud veteres christianos eorumque coemeteris. There remained in manuscript: De varia Romani Pontificis creatione libri X and numerous notes taken by him while studying and visiting the Roman basilicas and churches; of these, those concerning the buildings of the Lateran were also 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 modified by him in relation to his different states of mind. De creatione Pii IV papae, with the life of the Pontiff, 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.
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Pio Paschini