RODOTÀ, PIETRO POMPILIO. — Of Italo-Albanian family, born in 1707 in S. Benedetto Ullano (Cosenza, now in the eparchy of Lungro), died in Rome (according to communications from Msgr. St. Le Grelle of the Vatican Archives) on 15 May 1770. He was educated at the Greek College of S. Atanasio in Rome and soon appointed Greek scribe in the Vatican Library (1 January 1736).
His fame, however, rests on the history Dell'origine, progresso e stato presente del rito greco in Italia osservato dai greci, monaci basiliani e albanesi (3 vols., Rome 1756–1763), undertaken at the order of Benedict XIV. R. states that several years earlier Benedict XIV had commanded him to write this work, which, though delicate and perilous, he undertook with the encouragement of Cardinal Passione. Drawing on the archives of Rome, he left a work still consulted by those who study this subject. R.’s work needs to be recast in light of new documents to provide a clear and complete picture of the origin of the Greek rite in Italy, its expansion, and its more or less natural decline down to its near-total disappearance from most of Italian territory between the 18th and 19th centuries, when only the two eparchies of the Italo-Albanians, the Exarchal Monastery of Grottaferrata, and the Byzantine Colleges in Rome remained—still flourishing and effective thanks to the providential assistance of the Holy See.