- chapter 61: Annius of Viterbo –
an Etruscan bridge (also visible today).^13 This Summary of the History of Viterbo (Viterbiae
historiae epitoma) focuses attention on the ancient city, but also on the surrounding
territories that were of interest to the Farnese family, important feudal landlords.^14 Most
importantly, in its few dozen pages Magister Giovanni presents his evidence that Viterbo
was originally an Egyptian colony, founded by the great god Osiris, his son Libyus,
nicknamed Hercules, and his son-in-law Italus:^15
When Osiris the Egyptian and his third son Libyus, nicknamed Hercules, his fi rst
son by his wife Isis, and Italus, nicknamed Atlas, his nephew by his cousin and close
relative Corythus, established colonies, they entered this plain of ours, and chose it as
the capital of Italy, as a place of delight, full of pleasantness and pleasure, supremely
rich and suitable for every kind of human use; in this plain they founded this city
of ours, which they called Biturgion, that is, “next to the fl owing Urgion,” and the
Egyptians always called it by that name, as our illustrious Egyptian geographer
Ptolemy agrees in his Geography of Italy.The Epitoma proceeds with its roster of ancient heroes, tracing Viterbo’s history through
the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, and into the fi fteenth century.
It ends with words of high praise for Pope Innocent VIII, who died in 1492, the year
after the Epitoma was written. But it was Innocent’s successor, Alexander VI, the former
Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who turned the renegade friar Magister Giovanni Nanni into
the powerful, notorious Annius of Viterbo. It all happened because of a papal hunting
expedition in October of 1493. Alexander’s entourage was searching for rabbits in an
area called Monte Cipollara, “Onion Hill,” in the outskirts of Viterbo. When a rabbit
disappeared into a hole in the ground, the Pope’s retainers followed, and what they
saw made them forget all about rabbits and hunting for the rest of the day. They had
stumbled into an Etruscan tomb, fi lled with stone sarcophagi, and, still more excitingly,
legible inscriptions. Word of the discovery spread quickly to Viterbo, and soon Pope and
sarcophagi were entering the city in triumph. The sculpted coffi ns were put on display in
the courtyard of Palazzo dei Priori, City Hall, where they probably sit today, though time
and the elements have long since worn away their inscriptions (Fig. 61.5).
As Viterbo’s local historian Magister Giovanni was quick to supply an explanation of
this extraordinary fi nd. In November 1493, one month after their discovery, he produced a
pamphlet called The Borgian Study (Borgiana Lucubratio), explaining that Monte Cipollara
was not, in fact, “Onion Hill,” but Mons Cybellarius, the mountain of the great mother
goddess, Cybele. As for the sarcophagi, they were commemorative statues erected when
Isis had come to visit Viterbo and happened on the wedding of the city’s fi fth king, Iasius
Ianigena. The inscriptions celebrated the fact that she had used the occasion to bake
Europe’s very fi rst loaf of bread.
With information like this to fi re his imagination, the Pope seems to have decided that
Magister Giovanni’s talents were wasted in Viterbo. They seem to have kept in contact
from 1493 onward, and in 1499 the Dominican was called to Rome to serve as Master of
the Sacred Palace, chief theologian to the Pope. It was the third-highest position in the
Dominican order, after Master General and Prior General. It is hard to imagine a more
complete rehabilitation.
Contact with Rome expanded both Magister Giovanni’s ambitions as a historian and
his available resources. He sharpened his analytical tools to match the sophisticated