Podocataro, Ludovico

PODOCATARO, LUDOVICO. - Cardinal, physician, papal secretary, b. in Nicosia on the island of Cyprus ca. 1430 to a noble family, d. in Rome on 25 Aug. 1504.

Because of the fortunes of his homeland he came to Italy at a very young age, where he studied Greek and Latin letters with Guarino in Ferrara, philosophy with Gaetano Thiene of Vicenza, and medicine with Matteolo da Perugia in Padua, of which Studium he appears also to have been rector. He then entered the service of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (later Pope Alexander VI) as secretary and physician. Created bishop of Capaccio on 14 November 1483, he restored its cathedral there, and upon the death of Sixtus IV, summoned to Rome by Innocent VIII, he served for many years as papal physician and secretary. Alexander VI employed him in various offices, created him cardinal of the title of St. Agatha (28 September 1500) and secretary of the Briefs. He made himself the name was put forward for the tiara in the Conclaves of 1503. Archbishop of Benevento on 20 Jan. 1503, he never reached that see. He had a rich collection of books and manuscripts which he left as an inheritance to his nephew Livio, archbishop of Nicosia (now partly in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice). In Rome, in S. Maria del Popolo, a fine tomb, the work of Gian Cristoforo Romano, preserves his remains.

Renata Orazi Ausenda