
The Library
Who wrote the lives of the Popes? Permutations of a Renaissance myth
Tools
Bauer, Stefan (2021) Who wrote the lives of the Popes? Permutations of a Renaissance myth. Catholic Historical Review, 107 (1). pp. 28-49. doi:10.1353/cat.2021.0001 ISSN 0008-8080.
![]() |
PDF
WRAP-who-wrote-lives-popes-permutations-renaissance-myth-Bauer-2020 .pdf - Accepted Version Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (827Kb) |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1353/cat.2021.0001
Abstract
Since the fifteenth century, scholars have wondered about the authorship of the anonymous series of papal biographies from St. Peter onwards, now known as the Liber pontificalis. Bartolomeo Platina (ca. 1421–81) and Onofrio Panvinio (1530–68) were responsible for the false notion that “Anastasius the Librarian” was the book’s principal author. This article reconsiders why the myth of Anastasius was created and how it was passed on. It rejects the thesis by Girolamo Arnaldi that Platina created this myth on purpose, with the intention of furthering his own career. Rather, Platina produced the myth more or less accidentally. Yet this myth proved so powerful that it was not completely dispelled until the late nineteenth century.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > History | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Catholic Historical Review | ||||||
Publisher: | Catholic University of America Press | ||||||
ISSN: | 0008-8080 | ||||||
Official Date: | 6 March 2021 | ||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||
Volume: | 107 | ||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||
Page Range: | pp. 28-49 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1353/cat.2021.0001 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 7 January 2021 | ||||||
Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
![]() |
View Item |