X-Nico

Leo Allatius

In 1622, after the capture of Heidelberg by Tilly, when the Protestant Elector of Bavaria Frederick V was supplanted by a Catholic one, the victorious elector Maximilian of Bavaria presented the Palatinate library composed of 196 cases containing about 3500 manuscripts to Pope Gregory.

•

Allatius was "passed over" for the position of Vatican librarian and instead became librarian to Cardinal Lelio Biscia who had an extensive private library.

•

His Drammaturgia (1666), a catalogue of Italian musical dramas produced up to that year, is indispensable for the early history of opera.

•

Outside scholarly circles Allatius is perhaps best known today for his De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ), a minor essay mentioned in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Graeca (xiv. 17) as an unpublished work.

see also