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Annius of Viterbo (Latin: Joannes Annius Viterb(i)ensis; c. 1432 – 13 November 1502) was an Italian Dominican
friar, scholar, and historian, born Giovanni Nanni (Nenni) in Viterbo. He is now remembered for his fabrications.
He entered the Dominican Order early in life. He obtained the degree of Master of Theology from the studium generale at
Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the forerunner of the College of Saint Thomas and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas
Aquinas, Angelicum. He served as lector at the studium sometime before 1466.[1]
He was highly esteemed by Sixtus IV and Alexander VI; the latter made him Master of the Sacred Palace in 1499.
As a linguist, he spuriously claimed to be skilled in the Oriental languages. Walter Stephens[2] says: "His expertise in
Semitic philology, once celebrated even by otherwise sober ecclesiastical historians, was entirely fictive." Annius also
claimed to be able to read Etruscan.
In perhaps his most elaborate pseudo-archeological charade, in the autumn of 1493 he undertook a well-publicized dig at
Viterbo, during which marble statues of some of the most dramatic of the mythical figures associated with the city's
legendarium appeared to be unearthed; they had all been "salted" in the site beforehand.[3]
Contents
Works
Detection of his forgeries
Viterbiae historiae epitoma
See also
Notes
References
External links
Works
He is best known for his Antiquitatum Variarum, originally titled the Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum
de antiquitatibus loquentium[4] (Commentaries on the Works of Various Authors Discussing Antiquity) and often known
as the Antiquities of Annius. In this work, he published alleged writings and fragments of several pre-Christian Greek and
Latin profane authors, destined to throw an entirely new light on ancient history. He claimed to have discovered them at
Mantua.
Among his numerous other writings were De futuris Christianorum triumphis in Turcos et Saracenos (Future Triumphs
of the Christians over the Turks and the Saracens), a commentary on the Apocalypse, dedicated to Sixtus IV, to Christian
kings, princes, and governments,[5] and Tractatus de imperio Turcorum[6] (The Empire of the Turks). The author claims
that Mohammad is the Antichrist, and that the end of the world will take place when the Christians will have overcome the
Jews and the Muslims, an event which did not appear to him to be far distant.
One influential suggestion he made was that the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew applied to Joseph, while that
in the Gospel of Luke was Mary's.
In a defense of the papal lending institution, the Monte di Pietà, published c. 1495 under the title Pro Monte Pietatis,
Annio contributed the essay Questiones due disputate super mutuo iudaico & ciuili & diuino, arguing against the usury of
the Jews.[7]
Annio's forgeries began to unravel by the mid-16th century. In 1565–66, the humanist Girolamo Mei was engaged in a
historiographical argument with Vincenzo Borghini, who presented a claim, for the occasion of the marriage of Francesco I
de' Medici and Giovanna of Austria, that Florence was founded by Augustus. He based his claim on inscriptions reported
by Annio da Viterbo. Mei, no friend to the Medici, challenged this opinion and questioned the authenticity of Annio's
materials, in a brief Latin treatise (De origine urbis Florentiae).
See also
Codex Nanianus
Notes
1. Riccardo Fubini, NANNI, Giovanni (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-nanni_(Dizionario_Biografico)/)
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 77 (2012)
2. in Giants in Those Days (1989), p. 131.
3. Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (1969:114).
4. First published in Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1498. The pages of this edition can be accessed in the Biblioteca Virtual
de Andalucía (http://www.bibliotecavirtualdeandalucia.es/catalogo/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=10025).
5. Genoa, 1480
6. Published in Genoa, 1480
7. dated from Viterbo, 8 May 1492 (Rhodes)
8. Colbert left to the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris a manuscript of the thirteenth century, supposed to contain
fragments of the writings of two of these writers, i.e. Berosus and Megasthenes.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Schroeder, Jos. (1913). "Annius of Viterbo".
In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
External links
Pseudo-Berossus (https://books.google.com/books?id=G8a5QPUR3gIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)
– original Latin text
Berosi sacerdotis chaldaici Antiquitatum libri quinque (https://www.academia.edu/4865078/Berosi_sacerdotis_chaldai
ci_Antiquitatum_libri_quinque_recognovit_Roberto_Borgia_2013)
Benjamin Anderson, curator. The invention of Antiquity: "The landscape of ancient Rome" (http://www.brynmawr.edu/li
brary/exhibits/antiquity/use4.htm) Bryn Mawr exhibition, 2004
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