Enciclopedia Cattolica

RANZANO, PIETRO

Volume X · p. 314 · 1953

English translation · Testo originale italiano

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

PETER RANZANO. — Humanist and Dominican bishop, born in Palermo ca. (1420-28), died at Lucera (?) in 1492. He entered the Palermo convent of S. Domenico (ca. 1444). He was twice provincial of Sicily (1453-59; 1463-67). Tutor and confessor to John, son of Ferdinand I of Aragon, king of Naples, he was elected bishop of Lucera in September 1476. In the years 1488-90 he served as legate of Ferdinand I to Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary.

He wrote the *Annales omnium temporum*, a geographical, literary, historical and theological work, which contains almost all his output and was only partially published. Notable among his writings are the *Epitome rerum Hungaricarum* (Vienna 1558), the *Vita s. Vincentis Ferrarii*, in *Acta SS. Aprilis*, I, Paris 1865, p. 481: the first biography of the Saint; *De auctore, primordiis et progressu felicis urbis Panormi* (Palermo 1737).

Bibl.: Quétif-Echard, I, pp. 876-78; [A. Bremond], *Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum*, III, Rome 1731, p. 640; V. Barcellona [A. Lo Pressi], *Memorie della vita letteraria e dei viaggi di P. R.*, Palermo 1761; P. A. Termini, *P. R., umanista palermitano del sec. XV*, ibid. 1913; M. A. Coniglione, *La provincia domenicana di Sicilia*, Catania 1937, pp. 29-34, 38-41, 176-84, 408-10; id., *P. R., O. P., palermitano*, in *L'eco di S. Domenico*, 17 (1941), pp. 13-14, 22-23, 32-33, 46, 55-56, 67-68, 82, 92, 116; 18 (1942), pp. 22, 40, 54, 65-66, 79-81, 97-99. Abele Redigonda