Angelo Colocci

Angelo Colocci (Iesi, Marche, 1467 — 1549 [Dates according to M.J.C. Lowry, in Deutscher, Thomas Brian, and Peter G. Bietenholz, "Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register" 2003, "s.v." "Colocci, Angelo, of Iesi".] ) of Rome, papal secretary of Pope Leo X and a Renaissance humanist at the collegial center of literary and artistic classicism, assembled a collection of antiquities in his villa beside the Aqua Virgo.

Colossi came to Rome in 1497 ["In 1497 he bought his way into papal service" according to Lowry 2003.] as a young man. From 1511 he worked as one of the apostolic secretaries, a demanding position that curtailed his private literary abilities [Notebooks for a treatise on Roman weights and measures, a lifelong obsession, never came to fruition: S. Lattès, "A proposito dell'opera incompiuta 'De ponderibus et mensuris' di Angelo Colocci" "Atti" 97-108.] at the same time it placed him in the social center of the humanists at the court of Pope Julius II: [This literary world is discussed by Ingrid D. Rowland's biographical and anecdotal "The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome" (Cambridge University Press) 1998; Colocci often appears.] as a corredspondent of Sadoleto, Bembo and Aldus Manutius in Venice. [Lowry 2003.] In 1513 he bought a garden property near the Trevi Fountain, which, with the additional draw of his fine library, became a meeting place of the struggling [It had been suppressed by Pope Paul II: A.J. Dunston, "Pope Paul II and the humanists" "Journal of Religious History" 7 1972-73:287-306.] Roman Academy that had been founded by the late Pomponio Leto (died 1497). This garden was sited in the hollow beteen the Quirinal and the Pincio, in the southern reaches of the ancient Gardens of Sallust, [Phyllis Pray Bober, "The Coryciana and the Nymph Corycia" "Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes" 40 (1977:223-39) p. 224 note 12, and "passim".] a rich field of buried sculpture, which he displayed in his villa. There the grotto arranged round a sleping naiad, with an exquisitely-turned humanist inscription— "Huius nympha loci"...— that passed for Roman, was the original of garden features to be found at Stourhead and into the nineteenth century.

Colocci was a Latin poet of some reputation among his learned contemporaries, an antiquarian whose understanding of ancient metrology and sacrificial implements were particularly outstanding, and a savant collector of Roman sculptures, inscriptions, medals and carved gems. [Boder 1977:226.] His collection of sculptures was mentioned by Andrea Fulvio in his topographical guide to the city's ancient Roman ruins and remains, "Antiquitates Urbis" (1527). In connection with Pope Leo X's commission to Raphael to draw the most accurate possible reconstruction of the Rome of the Caesars, Angelo Colocci and Baldassare Castiglione drafted the courtly covering letter, with emendations by Raphael, that was enclosed with the final project. [The longest copy of the presentation letter is in the Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek, Munich: Ingrid D. Rowland, "Raphael, Angelo Colocci, and the Genesis of the Architectural Orders" "The Art Bulletin" 76.1 (March 1994:81-104).] A proportion of his considerable fortune was also expended in amassing one of the most impressive private libraries of his time, [S. Lattès: "Recherches sur la bibliothèque d'Angelo Colocci", "MAH" 48 (1931).] brutally treated at the Sack of Rome, in 1527, when Colucci was forced to pay exorbitant bribes to preserve his own life. [Lowry 2003.] ; Colocci had the foresight to send some of his manuscripts for safekeeping in Florence. The remaining Colocci manuscripts in the Vatican Library still number over two hundred, even after Napoleonic depredations removed Provençal lyrics to the Bibliothèque National, Paris— for Colocci was one of the first to search out and assemble Provençal poetry. The Greek printing press of Rome was under his care, [V. Fanelli, Il ginnasio greco di Leone X a Roma" "Studi Romani" 9 (1961:395.] for he was the patron of the Greek academy founded in Rome by Janus Lascaris; it met in his villa from 1516 to 1521. He was involved in the translation of Vitruvius' "De architetura" into Italian on Raphael's behest, done by the venerable Marco Fabio Calvo of Ravenna and based on the 1511 edition of Fra Giocondo; Raphael's own copy of it, in Munich, [Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod, it, 37.] bears Colocci's notes and emendations as well as Raphael's own.

Colocci, who after the death of his wife Girolama Bufalini Colocci, after a long illness, in 1518 took minor orders, was made Bishop of Nocera in 1537. [His early biographer, Federico Ubaldini, "Vita Angeli Colotii episcopi Nucerini", Rome 1673, is noted by Bober 1977:225, note 13; Ubaldini's "Vita di mons. Angelo Colocci", was edited by V. Fanelli, (Città del Vaticano) 1969, with copious notes and a bibliography. The "Dizionario biographico degli Italiani" notes that a bishopric had been reserved for him in 1521. In 1526, however, he legitimized his two-year-old son, Marcantonio, whose mother was married to someone else.]

A conference on Angelo Colocci in the Palazzo della Signoria of his birthplace, Iesi in September 1969, resulted in V. Fanelli, ed., "Atti del convegno di studi su Angelo Colocci (Jesi, 13-14 settembre 1969)", (Città di Castello), 1972, and later in Fanelli's, "Ricerche su Angelo Colocci e sulla Roma cinquecentesca" (Vatican City) 1979.

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