Latino Latini was an Italian scholar and humanist. Latini was a member of the commission for the revision of the Corpus Juris canonici. He is known for his lifelong research into the texts of the Fathers of the church and his critical editions of their works, including those of Cyprian. He published notes on Tertullian and worked on the text of Quintilian.
Life
Latini studied jurisprudence and belles-lettres at Siena. In 1552 he took holy orders at Rome. A poor man, he was obliged to find a patron and entered the service of cardinal Pozzo, for whom he was Latin secretary. He then became librarian to Cardinal Rudolfo Pio. Pio died in 1564, leaving his extensive library to Latini. He then worked for cardinals Farnese and Colonna. He superintended the production of the classic Roman edition of the SeptuagintVersion of the Bible, which appeared in 1587. He reformed the decretal of Gratian, at the wish of Pope Pius IV, which was published under Gregory XIII. After his death, the chapter of the Cathedral of Viterbo acquired Latini's important library which contained many annotated copies. His letters and papers are still there today. He published nothing under his own name in his lifetime. Two works appeared posthumously. The first was a volume of letters. The other was "Bibliotheca sacra et profana, sive observationes, correctiones, conjecturae, et variae lectiones". This book contains his collected filological and critical remarks to textual editions of various classical authors in an edition edited by Domenico Magri. The work contains a biography of Latini by Malgri. He knew John Annius, the forger of classical texts and artefacts. His letters were published and include many of the humanists of his day, including Andreas Masius. One of those to Masius, written in January 1559 deplores the potential effect of the new Roman Index of prohibited books, issued by Pope Paul IV, on scholarship: The death of Paul IV later in the same year lifted the threat, however.
