Quintus Pedius (deaf painter)

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Quintus Pedius was a Roman painter and the first deaf person in recorded history known by name.^[1] He is the first recorded deaf painter and his education is the first recorded education of a deaf child. All what is known about him today is contained in a single passage of the Natural History by the Roman author Pliny the Elder.^[2]

Pedius was the son of Roman Senator and orator Quintus Pedius Publicola, while his mother was an unnamed Roman woman. Pedius' paternal grandfather was the consul Quintus Pedius and his paternal grandmother was Valeria, a relative (sister?) of Roman Senator and orator Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. His paternal grandfather and Roman Emperor Augustus were maternal cousins.

Pedius was born deaf. On the advice of his paternal great uncle (?) Messalla Corvinus, and with permission from Augustus, Pedius was taught to paint. The boy turned out to be a talented painter, but died in young age.

[edit] Sources

^ Earliest Known Deaf People (to 1700 AD). Gallaudet University. Retrieved on 2007-11-04.
^ Pliny the Elder (1857). The Natural History of Pliny, John Bostock, Henry Thomas Riley (translators), H. G. Bohn. “Q. Pedius ... had a grandson, who being dumb from his birth, the orator Messala, to whose family his grandmother belonged, recommended he should be brought up as a painter, a proposal which was also approved of by the late Emperor Augustus. He died, however, in his youth, after having made great progress in the art.”