Cyriacus of Ancona or Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli (31 July 1391 – 1453/55) was a restlessly itinerant Italian humanist and antiquarian who came from a prominent family of merchants in Ancona, a maritime republic on the Adriatic. 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 archeology."[3]
Unlike many library antiquarians, Cyriacus traveled at first for his family's ventures,[Note 1] then to satisfy his own curiosity, all around the Eastern Mediterranean, noting down his archaeological discoveries in his day-book, Commentaria, that eventually filled seven volumes. He made numerous voyages in Southern Italy, Dalmatia[Note 2] and Epirus and into the Morea, to Egypt, to Chios, Rhodes and Beirut, to Anatolia and Constantinople,[Note 3] during which he wrote detailed descriptions of monuments and ancient remains, illustrated by his drawings.
His detailed on-site observations, particularly in lands of the Ottoman Empire, make him one of the precursors of modern archaeology. His accuracy as a meticulous epigrapher was praised by Giovanni Battista de Rossi.[6]
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 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.
Probablemente fue el primer viajero que reconoció la importancia de las ruinas de Eretria . [7] El 5 de abril de 1436, describió y esbozó un plano de las antiguas murallas de la ciudad, indicando la posición del teatro y las fortificaciones de la acrópolis y mencionando la existencia de inscripciones. Coleccionó una gran cantidad de inscripciones, manuscritos y otras antigüedades. A través de un dibujo realizado para Ciriaco, se nos registra el aspecto de la Columna de Justiniano , antes de que fuera desmantelada por los otomanos . Regresó en 1426 después de haber visitado Rodas, Beirut, Damasco, Chipre, Mitilene, Tesalónica y otros lugares.
Impulsado por una fuerte curiosidad, compró también un gran número de documentos con los que escribió seis volúmenes de Commentarii ("Comentarios"). Los estragos del tiempo han sido crueles con la obra de Ciriaco, que nunca publicó, pero que afortunadamente circuló en manuscritos y en copias de sus dibujos; Los Commentarii se perdieron en el incendio de 1514 de la biblioteca de Alessandro Sforza y Costanza Varano en Pesaro . Una serie de manuscritos de Pizzicolli sobre Ancona fueron destruidos durante un incendio de los archivos de la ciudad en 1532.
Se retiró a Cremona , donde vivió tan tranquilamente que no se sabe con certeza el año de su muerte. Mucho después de su muerte, se imprimieron algunos textos supervivientes: Epigrammata reperta per Illyricum a Kyriaco Anconitano (Roma, 1664), Cyriaci Anconitani nova fragmenta notis illustrata , (Pesaro, 1763) e Itinerarium (Florencia, 1742).
