PAOLINO da VENEZIA. – Franciscan historian, bishop of Pozzuoli, born in Venice around 1274, died at Pozzuoli in June 1344. To the internal offices of the order (lecturer, custos, inquisitor), he soon added diplomatic activity, brilliantly bringing to a conclusion in 1315 a negotiation between the Venetian Republic and Roberto di Napoli.
In 1321 he entered the papal Curia as chaplain and penitentiary under Giovanni XXII, who from 1322 to 1326 employed him in numerous and important legations, especially with the Republic of Venice, and in
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1324 appointed him bishop of Pozzuoli. From his see he had the opportunity to frequent the court of Roberto, who appointed him his councillor; he too belonged to the circle of men of letters surrounding the King. He knew Boccaccio, who speaks of him in the Genealogiae (XIV, 1). He also maintained epistolary relations with Marin Sanudo il Vecchio and other important figures of the period.
At the same time he wrote various works, still unpublished, of which the principal ones are the Historiarum Epitome, the Satyrica Historia (an expansion of the preceding work), and the Chronologia Magna or Compendium, all chronicles extending from the origin of the world to his own times, of little value. Among the shorter works, mention should be made of a treatise De ludo scacorum, the work in Venetian vernacular Il Rettore (published in full by A. Mussafia), and the extremely important Provinciale Ordinis Minorum (published at Quaracchi in 1892 by Fr. C. Eubel).