Paolo Pompilio

Another possible mention of the young Pompilio is found in two letters by Theodore Gaza written in 1473-74 to his friend Alessio Celadini (Bracke 1993 p. 9s; published by Mohler 1942). The letters reveal that Celadini has asked Gaza to take a young Roman named Paolo of good family into his household, but in the letters Gaza refuses due to his unsettled life, his lack of money, and the death of his patron, Bessarion, that will force him to leave the city soon. Instead, Gaza recommends that the young man stay with his parents.

In a letter dating from 1474 (Biblioteca Casanatense H 5455; Vol. Inc. 1493 f3r) Ottavio Cleofilo da Fano lists the most learned humanists in Rome during that year, among whom Pompilio is also found (I quote Bracke 1993, p. 10):

For the following years, we have no testimony concerning Pompilio. A guess would be that he studied with Leto at the Studium urbis. Pompilio is registered as grammar teacher in a school in the rione Campo Marzio in Rome 1480-81 (Da Empoli 1980 p. 142; Bracke 1993 p. 13ss, p. 20). At this time, Pompilio became involved in a fierce academic dispute with Sulpizio Verulano who had recently arrived in Rome from Perugia and was teaching with some success at the Studium urbis. A plausible description of this discussion is given by Wouter Bracke (Bracke 1992a and Bracke 1993 p. 14ss.). In the first edition of his work De Syllabis published 1480 (lost), Pompilio seems to have directed a harsh attack on an edition of Sulpizio's Metrica that had been published in an unfinished version without the author's approval, and Pompilio did not hesitate to criticize the famous newcomer to Rome. In 1481 Sulpizio published the finished edition of his Metrica adding a preface, Defensio Sulpitiana, wherein a certain Claudius Vallatus (probably a pseudonym of Sulpizio) responded to Pompilio's criticism. Pompilio answered the criticism in his Framea Pompilii contra Defensionen Sulpitianam published 1482 in Rome, adding a preface (mentioned initially in this article) in which he expresses the hope that Leto would intervene in the conflict. According to Bracke (Bracke 1993, p. 19) we may guess that the discussion thereafter was settled by Leto. At least, in the following editions, Sulpizio's Metrica (1482) and Pompilio's Syllabae (1488), the more polemical elements were removed, leaving only shadows of the former discussion. Pompilio's foremost purpose with this attack on Sulpizio seems to have been related to his advancement from neighborhood school teacher to university professor at the Studium urbis and his intentions of attracting students from Sulpizio's – apparently popular – courses to his own.

Pompilio is registered as professor of rhetoric at the Studium Urbis 1481–1484 (Da Empoli 1980 p. 122; Bracke 1993 p. 20), but due to lack of information in the registers of the Studium we cannot know how long he kept his professorship. Pompilio probably taught Sallust as his first university course (cf. Bracke 1993 p. 95s), a choice on his part that may be seen as an attempt to approach Leto's circle. For this course Pompilio composed a full handwritten lemmata commentary on Sallust's Catilina and Jugurtha, including sections on Roman history and topography as well as transcriptions of ancient inscriptions at the end (Biblioteca Angelica ms. 1351), clearly reflecting some of Leto's primary scholarly interests. Leto had himself taught Sallust the previous year as witnessed by the dictata of a German student (Trier, Stadtbibliothek, MS 1110/2037, ff. 78r-104r) and, in general, devoted much of his time to this author as reflected in his work on Roman history and, particularly, his 1490 editio princeps of Sallust's opera, published by Eucharius Silber in Rome. Moreover, Leto left a handwritten commentary in a copy of his Sallust edition (BAV, Ross. 441), and students copied Leto's commentary, adding to or selecting parts of it in several other copies of the edition (e.g. Farenga 2003, Ulery 2003, Osmond 2003, Osmond 2011a; Pade 2011), all of them writing in a style that was influenced by Pomponio. The precise mutual relationship among these annotations and their relation to Leto's commentary are not yet clear (Osmond 2011b). Another annotated copy of Leto's 1490 edition has recently entered the Vatican Library, Inc. IV. 974.

Another reason for Pompilio's advancement from schoolteacher to university professor was probably his good relations with influential Spanish circles in Rome and with the Borgia family. Several of Pompilio's works are dedicated to a member of the papal court and treat a Spanish subject, for instance his Odyssea (1486), a poem of 402 hexameter verses on the travels of Ulysses dedicated to Pietro Ludovico Borgia, duke of Candia, the Panegyris de triumpho Granatensi (1490) on the Spanish conquest of Granada dedicated to Bernardino Carvajal, bishop of Badajoz and ambassador of King Ferdinand, his Historia Balearica (lost) apparently on the history of the Baleares, the Vita Senecae (1490) not only on the life of Seneca, but also on other ancient famous authors from Spain and dedicated to Giovanni Lopez, dean of the University of Valencia and Rodrigo Borgia's secretary. It is probably not a coincidence that Pompilio in his commentary on Sallust (f. 9v.) alludes to Fabius Pictor's theory that the original name of Rome was Valentia, and that the first inhabitants of Italy came from Spain (f. 10r). The native city of the Borgia family was Valencia (cf. Bracke 1992a p. 160 n. 15).

Pompilio probably continued teaching at the Studium urbis after 1484, since his university commentary on Catullus is clearly composed after this year (Bracke 1993, 20; Gaisser 1992, 250-251). His presence in Rome in 1485 is confirmed by one of the surviving chapters of his Notationes – a collection of reflections on different, often linguistic, matters (e.g. Bracke 1993 p. 85ss; Charlet 1993) – in which he describes some prodigies that had happened in Rome that year, among other things the remarkable finding of the perfectly preserved body of a supposed ancient Roman girl in Via Appia 18 April (Mercati 1924-25).

In 1488 Pompilio became private tutor to the young Cesare Borgia, an advancement undoubtedly again due to his close contacts with the Spanish circles in Rome and with the Borgia family. In the prefatory letter to his De Syllabis (1488), dedicated to Cesare, Pompilio calls himself a most loving client (amicissimi clientis) of the Borgia family and an attentive and diligent tutor of Cesare (solicitam praeceptoris diligentiam). In a letter of 1490 to Cesare (Copenhagen, Royal Library Gl. Kgl. S. 2125), Alexander Farnese alludes to Pompilio's teaching, calling him a very learned teacher (doctissimi praeceptoris Pompilii) and the most wonderful source of wisdom that should be drawn upon often ("iucundissimum illum sapientiae fontem hauriendum frequenter"). Pompilio's tutoring of Cesare probably lasted until 1491 when the latter moved to Pisa (Bracke 1993 p. 20s). A trace of Pompilio's private teaching is found in Cesare's personal copy of Leto's Sallust edition (1490; Nice, BNVR Louis Nucéra XV 56), containing the family coat of arms, in which we find a few annotations probably added by Pompilio himself.

Although Pompilio published on a large range of subjects, he seems to have been especially interested in the Latin language, the relationship between Latin and the vernacular, and probably also between Latin and Greek. The vita emphasizes his work on syllables (opus exactissimum) and in the surviving parts of his Notationes (Vat. Lat. 2222, ff.113r-120r), we find chapters concerning the history and nature of Latin. Moreover, the vita mentions a work on orthography and a large work (vastum opus) presumably on Latin neologisms from the previous 700 years. Thus, it is not necessarily pure exaggeration when the anonymous vita honours Pompilio as the best language expert in Rome.