Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli

Cyriacus of Ancona or Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli (31 July 1391 – 1452) was a humanist and antiquarian who came from a prominent family of merchants in Ancona, a maritime republic on the Adriatic coast of the Italian Peninsula. He has been called the "Father of Archaeology":

"Cyriac of Ancona was the most enterprising and prolific recorder of Greek and Roman antiquities, particularly inscriptions, in the fifteenth century, and the general accuracy of his records entitles him to be called the founding father of modern classical archaeology."

Life His first voyage was made at the age of nine, in the familia of his mother's brother, for commercial reasons. Unlike many library antiquarians, Cyriacus was not content to study classical texts: to satisfy his desire to rediscover antiquity, sailed the Mediterranean in search of historical evidence. He noted down his archaeological discoveries in his day-book, Commentaria, that eventually filled seven volumes. He made numerous voyages in Southern Italy, Dalmatia and Epirus and into the Morea, to Egypt, to Chios, Rhodes and Beirut, to Anatolia and Constantinople, during which he wrote detailed descriptions of monuments and ancient remains, illustrated by his drawings.

His years in Rome studying Latin are commemorated by his drawings of many of the monuments and antiquities of ancient Rome. In Constantinople he studied Greek. He enjoyed the patronage of Eugenius IV, who had been Papal legate in the March of Ancona from 1420 to 1422, Cosimo de' Medici, and the Visconti of Milan. He was in Siena at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, and when Sigismund came to Rome for his coronation as Emperor, Cyriacus was his guide among Rome's antiquities. Two years later, in 1435, Cyriacus was back exploring in Greece and Egypt.

In 1435, Cyriacus visited and rediscovered the true nature of the Great Pyramid, which until then was believed to be one of Joseph's granaries and in 1436 that of the Parthenon, which until then was considered only the largest church in Athens.

He was probably the first traveller who recognized the importance of the ruins of Eretria: on 5 April 1436, he described and sketched a plan of the ancient city walls, indicating the position of the theatre and the fortifications of the acropolis and mentioning the existence of inscriptions. He also visited and recognized Apollonia (Illyria), Nicopolis, Butrint and Delphi

He retired to Cremona, where he died in 1452, according to the Trotti manuscript, now held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Long after his death, some surviving texts were printed: Epigrammata reperta per Illyricum a Kyriaco Anconitano (Rome, 1664), Cyriaci Anconitani nova fragmenta notis illustrata, (Pesaro, 1763) and Itinerarium (Florence, 1742).

Founding father of Archaeology

Great Pyramid of Giza. Its true nature was rediscovered by Cyriacus in 1435 Parthenon. Its true nature was rediscovered by Cyriacus in 1436 Delphi. Its true nature was rediscovered by Cyriacus in 1436 Cyriacus's vocation for researching evidence of the past was born in 1421 from observing the Arch of Trajan in Ancona.

His detailed on-site observations, particularly in Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt, make him the founding father of modern archaeology ; Theodor Mommsen considered him the founding father of epigraphy .

His vocation dates back to 1421, when scaffolding was erected around Arch of Trajan in his city for restoration. This presented Cyriacus, then thirty years old, with an extraordinary opportunity to climb the scaffolding and observe the monument up close; the harmonious proportions, the purity of the Proconnesian marble, and the ancient inscriptions were irresistible to Cyriacus. He tried to imagine the arch's original appearance and, based on the inscriptions on it, hypothesized the presence of gilded bronze statues of Trajan, his wife Plotina, and his sister Marciana on the attic. .

The rediscovery of the Parthenon as an ancient monument is also due to Cyriacus: In 1436, he was the first after antiquity to describe the Parthenon and to call it by his name, of which he had read many times in ancient texts, including that of Pausanias Periegetes. Thanks to him, Western Europe was able to have the first design of the monument (cf. his drawing of the monument in Manuscript Hamilton 254), which Ciriaco called "temple of the goddess Athena", unlike previous travellers, who had called it "church of Virgin Mary":

...mirabile Palladis Divae marmoreum templum, divum quippe opus Phidiae ("...the wonderful temple of the goddess Athena, a divine work of Phidias").

In 1436, Cyriacus of Ancona rediscovered the site of Delphi during his maritime voyages in search of relics from the classical era. He visited Delphi in March and stayed there for six days. He recorded all the visible archaeological remains, basing his identification on Pausanias' text. He described the stadium and the theatre, as well as some sculptures. He also recorded several inscriptions, most of which are now lost.

Cyriacus himself explains the spirit that animated him:

These words are now known as "The Oath of Cyriac" and were used as the title of a documentary film released in 2022 by Andorran director Olivier Bourgeois, which recounts the heroism of those who worked to preserve cultural heritage from the ravages of war. "The Oath of Cyriac" as applied to archaeologists, therefore, parallels the Hippocratic Oath of physicians .

Also significant is the praise of archaeology that Ciriaco left us:

Also noteworthy is his fundamental contribution to the recovery of Roman epigraphic writing, made possible thanks to his work, which goes beyond the mediation of Carolingian writing: according to Ciriaco, the only true Roman lapidary character must be sought only in the examination of ancient epigraphs, without resorting to medieval mediations. In Dubrovnik, in 1443-1444, he composed two Latin inscriptions, one in the loggia of the Rector’s Palace, and the other on the fountain erected by the architect Onofrio della Cava; they were the first examples of monumental capitals all'antica to be seen in Dubrovnik.