PLATINA, BARTOLOMEO SACCHI known as Il Platina. Humanist, born at Piadena (from which his name derives), near Cremona in 1421, died in Rome of the plague on 21 September 1481. For four years he served 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 the newly created Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, his patron, to Rome. He was among the members of the Roman Academy and was admitted by Pius II among the abbreviators. But under Paul II his fortunes changed.
He was twice 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, on the charge of impiety and conspiracy against the Pope. He was released before May 1469, but wealth and honours came to him only under Sixtus IV, who in 1475 entrusted him with the custody of the Vatican Library. Platina’s principal work is the Liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum, completed in 1474 and later issued in a shorter form (in Rer. Ital. Script., III, 1, Bologna 1913-32), which enjoyed wide circulation, though not always impartial, especially in its treatment of the popes of his own time. It was later continued by various hands. Also noteworthy are a Historia urbis Mantuae (1466-69; in Rer. Ital. Script., ed. Milano 1731, XX, pp. 611-862) and two political treatises of uncertain date (De principe, ed. Genova 1657; De bono cice, ed. by F. Battaglia, Bologna 1944).
