The Neapolitan scholar Gianvincenzo Pinelli occupies a central position in the intellectual milieu of the sixteenth-century Res Publica Litterarum. Although he published nothing in his lifetime, it was through his extraordinarily rich intellectual resource—his library in Padua, one of the foremost university cities in early modern Europe—that Pinelli became a pivotal figure in the continent-wide network of humanist scholars. The library, renowned for its vast and diverse holdings in both manuscript and printed form, allowed Pinelli to position himself at the nexus of scholarly exchange. Correspondences with every major intellectual of his day testify to his reputation as a go-to interlocutor for both philological and scientific enquiries. In these letters Pinelli emerges metaphorically as “a spider in its web,” drawing upon the depth and breadth of his collection to respond to even the most arcane questions.
Despite his renown among historians of the early modern period and bibliophiles, Pinelli is far less celebrated among classical philologists and Byzantinists. For them, his name tends to surface only episodically, typically in the context of collation work involving Greek manuscripts from his collection that are now housed in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. It is precisely this scholarly lacuna that Francesca Christina Porro addresses in her engaging essay, which explores Pinelli’s philological interests and analyses the circle of scholars who drew upon his library’s resources. Porro’s monograph centres on the Excerpta de Legationibus, a Byzantine compendium assembled in the mid-tenth century under the patronage of Emperor‑philologist Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, as part of an extensive effort to organise and transmit ancient learning in epitomised form. In recent years, Pia Carolla has been working towards a new critical edition of the Excerpta, and, as the scholarship underpinning these materials, her work provides both the impetus and the structural backbone of Porro’s study.
At the core of Porro’s monograph is a meticulous examination of codex Ambr. G 72 inf., a manuscript produced within Pinelli’s scholarly circle that has been overlooked in Carl de Boor’s critical edition of 1903. Porro’s primary objective is to assess the codex’s role in the Renaissance transmission of the Excerpta, in particular the Excerpta de legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes, while also exploring Pinelli’s broader significance in circulating unpublished literary works in the late sixteenth century. The codex, although relatively late—produced in the latter half of the sixteenth century—offers unique insights into the tradition, preservation, and use of Byzantine textual culture in early modern Italy.
Porro begins with an introduction that outlines the history of Pinelli’s library, drawing extensively on recent scholarship—especially the works of Angela Nuovo and Anna Maria Raugei. This chapter situates the library within the intellectual and institutional environment of Padua, emphasising how its combination of glossed manuscripts, annotated printed books, and philological instruments made it a centre of scholarly activity. Having established this context, Porro turns, in the following chapter, to her main research object: the text of the Excerpta de Legationibus as preserved in codex Ambr. G 72 inf., examining both its textual content and paratextual apparatus.
The textual tradition of the Excerpta, which is divided into the Excerpta de legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes (ELR) and the Excerpta de legationibus Gentium ad Romanos (ELG), can be traced back to an ancient parchment manuscript (now lost) that was once held at the Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. This manuscript—known to scholars by the siglum π—formerly belonged to Juan Páez de Castro, confessor to Philip II, and originated from the Messina monastery of San Salvatore in lingua Phari. Although Páez and his library are not the central focus of Porro’s study, the absence of bibliographical reference is noticeable. At the very least, Porro could have cited T. Martínez Manzano, Los manuscritos de Juan Páez de Castro procedentes del monasterio de San Salvador de lingua phari: crónica de un expolio, Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, n.s. 58,2022, pp. 243–296, esp. 248–249. This study discusses precisely the manuscript of the Excerpta once owned by Páez and its impact on his scholarly network, particularly Antonio Agustín, who, following Páez’s death, obtained a copy of the codex through the scribe and bookseller Andreas Darmarios.
From the book copied by Darmarios (identified with the siglum α), all later manuscripts of the Excerpta derive. As the manuscript used by Agustín perished in the 1671 fire that also destroyed π, the extant copies—including Ambr. G 72 inf.—though produced in the latter half of the sixteenth century, are crucial witnesses for reconstructing the text of ELR. For ELG, however, a direct copy of π survives: Ambr. N 135 sup., transcribed by Darmarios and denoted by the siglum A, is the progenitor of the textual tradition for this part of the Excerpta de Legationibus.
Chapter 3 undertakes a finely detailed analysis of the scribal hands in Ambr. G 72 inf., emphasising that the core excerpts were copied by Camillo Zanetti, an active scribe and collaborator in Pinelli’s household. Drawing on palaeographic comparison, Porro reconstructs Zanetti’s labours, including the likely connection to Darmarios’ scriptorium. Zanetti is credited with ff. 7r–10r (with the final lines in Pinelli’s own hand), ff. 23r–25v, and ff. 27r–28r (with f. 28v blank). The attribution of f. 29r is more ambiguous; while Porro hesitates, I argue that this section should be ascribed to the anonymous collaborator whose handwriting appears elsewhere. These distinctions between hands are crucial not only for understanding who physically produced the manuscript, but also for discerning the provenance and intellectual hierarchy within Pinelli’s circle. Two less formal scribes, writing in Greek and Latin respectively, contributed summaries and πίνακες, while Pinelli himself, together with an unnamed assistant, added titles and corrections. The assistant, I maintain, should be credited with the transcription of f. 29r.
In Chapter 4, Porro expands the palaeographic investigation to include the manuscript’s overall material and textual character. She documents its codicological features—ruling, foliation, quire-structure—and notes the presence of later annotations by Angelo Mai, who, as cardinal and prefect of the Vatican Library (1853–54), played an important role in nineteenth-century manuscript scholarship. While her descriptive methodology is admirably precise, it occasionally veers towards overanalysis at the expense of integrating these details into a broader interpretative framework. Greater clarity on the codex’s internal coherence and structural logic would have enhanced understanding of why, despite its modest size of twenty‑nine folios, it retained lasting philological worth. One observes that Pinelli and his associates cleverly layered additions upon Zanetti’s copied cores: extracts, glosses, paratextual devices—all evidencing an active engagement with the Excerpta as both a document of study and a text for future reproduction.
Chapter 5 explores more deeply Pinelli’s working methods, situating Ambr. G 72 inf. within the larger textual tradition of the Excerpta. By analysing marginalia—particularly the corrections and the information concerning the material aspect of the manuscripts used by Pinelli —Porro convincingly shows that Pinelli had access to two further manuscripts sent by Antonio Agustín to the humanist Fulvio Orsini in the 1570s (Vat. gr. 1418 and Naples, Bibl. Naz. Vittorio Emanuele II, III.B.15), the same that Orsini used for his partial editio princeps (1582). Drawing upon these annotations, Porro speculates that Pinelli had consulted two now-lost witnesses of ELR, although she refers readers to her 2021 article for fuller detail. Especially noteworthy is Pinelli’s attention to physical manuscript features—folio count, lineation, column structure—marking an interest not purely scholarly but also commercial, possibly for calculations of copying costs. Porro rightly contextualises this in terms of a possible aim to produce a more complete and accurate edition of the Excerpta than those already in circulation, suggesting a proto-editorial ambition on Pinelli’s part.
Chapter 6 examines the strategic selection of passages preserved in Ambr. G 72 inf. Through comprehensive content analysis, Porro argues that Pinelli intentionally included only those excerpts not yet published elsewhere. The result is a curated archive of unpublished material, implying both philological discernment and practical editorial foresight.
In Chapter 7, Porro presents the empirical foundation of her research: an annotated transcription of all Latin-script marginalia (often vernacular in idiom) found in the manuscript. This corpus, meticulously organised, provides both insight into Pinelli’s scholarly engagement and a resource for future palaeographic and philological study.
The concluding chapter summarises the findings—oft-repeated from earlier sections, but nonetheless serviceable. Porro’s study underlines the importance of recentiores—later copies and recensions—for the history of Byzantine text reception in mid‑modern Europe. She reserves particular praise for the rigour and precision of the work, which makes a valuable, if limited, contribution to understanding Pinelli’s scholarly ethos and the intellectual culture of his milieu.
Yet the monograph remains predominantly descriptive. It does not fully engage with larger cultural or intellectual frameworks—such as the intersections of commerce, philology, and humanist networks; the impact of Paduan academic culture; or the ways in which manuscript circulation shaped early modern scholarly paradigms. From the reader’s perspective, the work has the hallmarks of a degree thesis: solid, well-researched, yet not always ambitious in scope. One hopes that in future publications, the author will develop her critical apparatus to encompass broader interpretative perspectives, perhaps exploring how Pinelli’s engagement with unpublished Byzantine texts intersects with contemporary grammatical, historical, and scientific discourses.
In sum, Porro’s volume stands as an exemplar of meticulous philological scholarship. It enhances our understanding of Gianvincenzo Pinelli’s role as a mediator in the Renaissance transmission of Byzantine texts, and illumines the practices of textual gathering, copying, and annotation within his Paduan library. While further analytical depth would be welcome—especially concerning Pinelli’s cultural impact and editorial intentions—the study nonetheless provides a firm foundation upon which future research might build. It calls for deeper interrogation of the scholarly and economic systems that underpinned Pinelli’s activity, and for cross-disciplinary connections that would place this work more securely within the broader currents of early modern knowledge production.