Carteromachus, Scipio

, whose proper name was Forteguerra, an eminent Italian scholar, was born of a good family at Pistoia in Tuscany, Feb. 4, 1467. He was at first educated at a college in Pistoia called “la | Sapienza de‘ Forteguerri,” from a cardinal of that name who founded it for the benefit of twelve students, three of whom should he of the family of Forteguerra. He studied afterwards at Rome and Florence, where Politian was his Greek preceptor. In 1500, the senate of Venice appointed him to teach Greek in that city, and his reputation for knowledge of that language was most extensive. He was afterwards invited to Rome by pope Julius II. who appointed him preceptor to his nephew, the cardinal Galeotto and Leo X. is said to have chosen him in the same capacity for his cousin Julius de Medici; but whatever benefits might have accrued from this or other instances of Leo’s favour, were prevented by Carteromachus’s death, Oct. 1G, 1513. He is indebted for his literary reputation rather to the numerous commendations of his contemporaries and friends than to his own writings, many of which are said to have been dispersed at his death, and usurped by others into whose hands they had fallen. Among those which remain is his “Oratio de laudibus literarum Graecarum,” Venice, 1504, 4to, Basil, 1517, and prefixed to Stephens’ s “Thesaurus Linguae Grasctf.” Several epigrams of his also are extant in Greek and Latin in the publications of the times. During his residence at Venice, he frequently acted as corrector of the Ahline press, and had a considerable hand in the edition of Ptolomy’s Geography printed at Rome in 1507, folio. ¹