Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
PIZZICOLLI, CIRIACO de' (Kyriacus de Piceni collibus). — One of the most singular figures of Humanism for versatility of intellect and breadth of learning: painter, poet, orator, and above all archaeologist, b. at Ancona in 1391, d. at Cremona in 1452. He began travelling throughout Italy and beyond it at a very early age.
He spent a large part of his life in the Greek lands, intent on discovering and transcribing Greek, Latin, and Egyptian inscriptions, collecting manuscripts, sculptures, and works of art, and sketching outlines of famous monuments. An immense and precious body of material, which he arranged in his voluminous Commentarii, never published, probably destroyed in the fire of the Sforza Library at Pesaro (1514), where they had been deposited. Today only scant relics of his autographs and of copies made by his friends remain.
P. is the pioneer of epigraphic science (although not free from errors and shortcomings), whose historical value he recognized and defended in opposition to the literary tradition.
BIBL.: the fragmentary epigraphic material is in CIL. III, pp. xxii, 129; in Th. Preger, De epigrammatibus Graecis meletamata selecta, Monaco 1889, and in G. B. De Rossi, Inscript. christ., II, 1, Roma 1888, pp. 356-87; G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klass. Alterthums, I, 2nd ed., Berlino 1893, pp. 268-86; R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci, I, Firenze 1905, pp. 48, 69, 123; A. Gudemann, Grundriss der Geschichte der klass. Philologie, 2nd ed., Lipsia-Berlino 1909, p. 177 ff.; P. Maas, Ein Notizbuch des C. von A. aus dem Jahre 1456, in Beiträge zur Forschung, 1 (1913), pp. 5-15; L. Berra, Per la biografia di C. d'A., in Giorn. stor. lett. it., 63 (1914), pp. 461-62; F. Pall, C. d'A. e la crociata contro i Turchi, in Bull. hist. de l'Acad. roumaine, 20
(1937), pp. 9-60; Pastor, I, pp. 43 and 393; G. Funaoli, Studi di lett. antica, I, Bologna 1946, p. 280 ff. Benedetto Riposati
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“PIZZICOLLI, CIRIACO DE' (KYRIACUS DE PICENI COLLIBUS).” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX (1952), p. 962. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/pizzicolli-ciriaco-de-kyriacus-de-piceni-collibus.
