Andreas, John

, bishop of Aleria in Corsica, has established a name in the literary world, not so much by his original compositions, as by the care he bestowed in superintending many valuable works, when the invention of printing was introduced at Rome, by those celebrated printers Conrad Sweignheym, and Arnould Pannartz. His family name was Bussi, or Bossi, and he was born at Vigevano in 1417: after having resided for many years at, Rome in a state of poverty and neglect, he obtained the patronage of the cardinal de Cusa, who procured for him the place of secretary to the Vatican library, and then the bishopric of Accia, in the island of Corsica; from which | he was translated not long after to that of Aleria. Some biographers, mistaking him for John Andreas, the canonist, have attributed to him writings on the Decretals; we have nothing of his, however, that can be deemed original, except the valuable prefaces prefixed to the editions which he corrected and superintended in the press. He died in 1475. He was particularly instrumental in introducing the art of printing into Italy, and fixing it at Rome. The printers above-mentioned were under his immediate protection, and in his prefaces he considers them as under his care. The works he superintended were, in 1468 9, 1. Epistolae Ciceronis ad Familiares. 2. Hieronymi Epistolrc. 3. Julius Caesar. 4. Livy. 5. Virgil. 6. Lucan. 7. Aulus Gellius. 8. Apuleius; and in 1470 1, 9. Lactantius. 10. Cicero’s Orations. 11. S. Biblia. 12. Cyprianus. 13. S. Leon. Mag. Sermones et Epistolne. 14. Ovidii Metamorph. 15. Pliny. 16. Quintilian. 17. Suetonius. 18. Ciceronis Epist. ad Attic; and Lyra in Biblia, and Strabo, without date. Mr. Beloe, who has abridged many of Andreas’s prefaces, justly observes, that when the length of time is considered, which at the present day would be required to carry any one of the preceding works through the press, it seems astonishing, and hardly credible, that so much should have been accomplished in so very short a period. ¹