PLATINA, BARTOLOMEO SACCHI detto il. - Humanist, b. at Piadena (whence his name), near Cremona in 1421, d. at Rome of the plague on 21 Sept. 1481. For four years he served as a soldier under Francesco Sforza and Niccolò Piccinino, then devoted himself to humanistic studies in Mantua under the guidance of Ognibene Bonisoli, whom he succeeded as tutor to the sons of Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga. From 1457 to 1461 he studied Greek in Florence under Giovanni Argiropulo and formed friendships with the leading humanists. In 1462 he followed to Rome the newly made cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, his patron. He was among the members of the Roman Academy and was admitted by Pius II among the abbreviators. But under Paul II his fortune changed.

Twice he was imprisoned: in 1464, for four months, because of his violent protests against the suppression of the college of abbreviators, and in 1468, together with Pomponio Leto and other academicians, under the accusation of impiety and of conspiracy against the Pope. He was released before May 1469, but comfort and honors he regained only from Sixtus IV, who in 1475 entrusted him with the custody of the Vatican Library. The principal work of P. is the Liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum, completed in 1474 and then rewritten in a shorter form (in Rer. Ital. Script., III, I, Bologna 1913-32), which had a very wide diffusion, although not always impartial, especially in the part relating to the pontiffs of his own time. It was later continued by various authors. Also noteworthy are a Historia urbis Mantuae (1466-69; in Rer. Ital. Script., ed. Milan 1731, XX, pp. 611-862) and two political treatises of uncertain dating (De principe, ed. Genoa 1657; De bono cive, edited by F. Battaglia, Bologna 1944) which they anticipate certain positions of Machiavelli. Less important are the philosophical writings (De vera nobilitate; De falso et vero bono, appendix to the Liber, ed. Cologne 1540 and others) and the rhetorical ones (De flosculis quibusdam linguae latinae; De laudibus bonarum artium, in T. A. Vairani, Cremonensium monumenta Romae extantia, part I, Rome 1778).

PLATINA - Proem to the editio princeps of the Vitae Pontificum, Venice 1479 - Rome, copy in the Biblioteca Nazionale Vitt. Eman.(phot. Enc. Catt.)

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: A. Luzio - R. Renier, Il P. e i Gonzaga, in Giorn. stor. della letter. ital., 13 (1880), pp. 430-40; V. Zabughin, Pomponio Leto, I, Grottaferrata 1912, p. 58 ff.; G. Cammelli, Giovanni Argiropulo, Florence 1941, p. 97 ff.; A. Campana, Antonio Blado e B. P., in Miscellanea bibliografica in memoria di d. Tommaso Accurti, Rome 1947, p. 39 ff. On the political works: F. Cavalli, La scienza politica in Italia, in Memorie dell'Ist. Ven., 12 (1864), pp. 487-95 (offprint, Venice 1865). On philosophical thought: N. Caregaro-Negrin, Il « De felicitate » di Francesco Zabarella e due trattati sul bene e la felicità del sec. XV, in Classici e neolatini, 5 (1906), pp. 281-93; E. Garin, Filosofi italiani del '400, Florence 1942, pp. 263-73.

Gioacchino Paparelli

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Platina, Bartolomeo Sacchi detto Il

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