RODOTÀ, PIETRO POMPILIO. — Of Italo-Albanian family, born in 1707 at S. Benedetto Ullano (Cosenza, now in the eparchy of Lungro), he died in Rome (according to communications from Mons. St. Le Grelle of the Vatican Archives) on 15 May 1770. He was educated at the Greek College of S. Atanasio in Rome and was soon appointed Greek scribe at the Vatican Library (1 January 1736).
His fame, however, is due to the history On the Origin, Progress, and Present State of the Greek Rite in Italy Observed by the Greeks, Basilian Monks, and Albanians (3 vols., Rome 1758–1763), undertaken by order. R. states that for several years Benedict XIV had ordered him to write this work, which, however arduous and difficult, he undertook, encouraged by Cardinal Passionei. Drawing on the archives of Rome, he left a work to which those concerned with this subject still have recourse. R.’s work needs to be recast in the light of new documents in order to provide a clear and complete account of the origin of the Greek rite in Italy, its expansion, and its more or less natural decline until its almost total disappearance, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from all parts of Italian territory, where there now remain only the two eparchies of the Italo-Albanians, the exarchal monastery of Grottaferrata, and the Byzantine Colleges in Rome, still flourishing and effective through the providential assistance of the Holy See.