UGONIO, POMPEO

He was a pupil of the Jesuits, then a beneficiary cleric of St Peter’s Basilica before 1573 and a professor from 1587 at the Roman Archigymnasium. In 1588 he published in Rome the *Historia delle Stationi di Roma che si celebrano la quadragesima*, in which, besides the lives of the saints whose churches were stations, he dealt with the origins, foundations, rites, restorations, relics and memories of these churches, both ancient and modern. In the preface to this work he mentions that from childhood he had devoted himself to collecting memories of the churches of Rome and taking notes on them, as is shown by the manuscripts prepared for a *Theatrum Romanae urbis*. G. B. De Rossi identified one of these manuscripts, half preserved in the Vatican Library, Barb. lat. 1994 (ff. 1–692), and half in the Biblioteca Comunale of Ferrara (ms. 1619, I, 18, ff. 693–1400). It contains many valuable notices about the churches of Rome which were used by G. B. De Rossi, E. Münte, A. Frothingham and G. Wilpert. Even more valuable are his manuscript notes preserved in the Vatican Library, since his observations predate the transformations undergone by Rome’s sacred buildings from the late 16th century onward; also noteworthy is a copy of N. Signorili’s *Catalogo delle chiese di Roma* with chronological and topographical marginalia. Moreover, from the diary of P. U. it emerges that he was responsible for initiating the exploration of Rome’s ancient Christian cemeteries, begun on 15 November 1593 in the crypts of the Agro Verano together with his nineteen-year-old pupil at the Roman Archigymnasium, Antonio Bosio. From these notes it appears that P. U. and Antonio Bosio visited parts of the cemeteries of S. Lorenzo, S. Sebastiano, Domitilla, Trasone, Priscilla, Panfilo and S. Valentino, copying inscriptions and sketching the paintings in outline.