Rodotà, Pietro Pompilio

RODOTÀ, PIETRO POMPILIO. - Of an 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 in the Greek College of St. Athanasius in Rome and was soon appointed writer of Greek in the Vatican Library (1 January 1736).

His fame, however, is due to the history Dell'origine, progresso e stato presente del rito greco in Italia osservato dai greci, monaci basiliani e albanesi (3 vols., Rome 1758-1763), undertaken by order. R. says that for some years Benedict XIV had ordered him to write this work which, however thorny and difficult, he undertook encouraged by Cardinal Passionei. Availing himself of the archives of Rome, he left a work to which those who deal with this subject still have recourse. R.'s work needs to be recast in the light of new documents in order to give a clear and complete idea of the origin of the Greek rite in Italy, of its expansion and of its, more or less natural, decline down to its almost total disappearance, between the 18th and 19th centuries, from every part of the Italian territory, where now only the two eparchies of the Italo-Albanians, the exarchic monastery of Grottaferrata and the Byzantine Colleges in Rome survive, still flourishing and efficient through the providential assistance of the Holy See.

Gaetano Petrotta