Ciriaco Pizzicolli
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Ciriaco Pizzicolli (full: Ciriaco dei Pizzicolli), also known as Cyriac of Ancona (c. 1391 – c. 1455) was an Italian traveller, archaeologist and collector of antiques. He was employed by the Ottomans during the siege of Constantinople. He was among the first Renaissance humanists to study the physical remains of the ancient world in person and for that reason is sometimes regarded as the father of classical archaeology.
[edit] Biography
Born in Ancona to a family of traders, he soon left the merchant work to devote himself to the study of Antiquity and ancient languages. He made numerous voyages in Italy, Dalmatia, Aegean Sea, Egypt and Constantinople, in which he wrote detailed descriptions of monuments and ancient remains, backed by drawing by himself.
Pushed by a strong curiosity, he also bought a great numbers of documents which he used to write six volumes of Commentarii ("Comments"), which however went lost in the 1514 fire of the library of Alessandro and Costanza Sforza in Pesaro. Also a series of Pizzicolli's manuscripts about Ancona was destroyed during a fire of the city's archives in 1532.
He died in Cremona.
[edit] Sources
- Cyriac of Ancona: Later Travels, (2004), edited and translated by Edward W. Bodnar and Clive Foss. ISBN 0-674-00758-1
