Sabellicus

, whose proper name was Marcus Antonius Coccius, or vernacularly Marcantonio Coccio, an Italian historian and critic, was born in 1436, in the campagna of Rome, on the confines of the ancient country of the Sabines, from which circumstance he took the name of Sabellicus. He was a scholar of Pomponius Letus’s, and in 1475, was appointed professor of eloquence at Udino, to which office he was likewise appointed at Venice, in 1484-. Some time after, when the plague obliged him to retire to Verona, he composed, within the space of fifteen months, his Latin history of Venice, in thirty- three books, whiqh were published in 1487, entitled “Rerum Venetiarum ab urbe condita,” folio, a most beautiful specimen of early printing, of which there was a copy on vellum, in the Pinelli library. The republic of Venice was so pleased with | this work as to decree the author a pension of 200 sequins; and Sabellicus, out of gratitude, added four books to his history, which, however, remain in manuscript. He published also “A Description of Venice,” in three books a “Dialogue on the Venetian Magistrates” and two poems in honour of the republic. The most considerable of his other works is his rhapsody of histories: “Rhapsodiae Historiarum Enneades,” in ten Euneads, each containing nine books, and comprizing a general history from the creation to the year 1503. The first edition published at Venice in 1498, folio, contained only seven Enneads; but the second, in Io04, had the addition of three more, bringing the history down to the above date. Although there is little, either in matter or manner, to recommend tins work, or many others of its kind, to a modern reader, it brought the author both reward and reputation. His other works are discourses, moral, philosophical, and historical, with many Latin poems; the whole printed in four volumes, folio, at Basil in 1560. There is a scarce edition of his “Epistolæ familiares, necnon Orationes et Poemata,” Venice, 1502, folio. Sabellicus likewise wrote commentaries on Pimy the naturalist, Valerius Maximus, Livy, Horace, Justin, Florus, and some other classics, whi< h are to be found in Gruter’s “Thesaurus.” He died at Venice in 1506. Whatever reputation he might gain by his history of Venice, he allows himself that he too often made use of authors on whom not much reliance was to be placed; and it is certain that he did not at all consult, or seem to know the existence of, the annals of the doge Andrew Dandolo, which furnish the most authentic, as well as ancient, account of the early times of the republic.¹