Perotti, Niccolò (1429–1480)

Italian cleric and humanist writer, born in Fano. He acted as one of Pope Nicholas V's translators, rendering, for example, the first books of the Greek historian Polybius into Latin 1452–54. Papal secretary from 1455, he was made archbishop of Siponto in 1458. Although his later career was as a papal governor, he continued his scholarly pursuits, editing the works of the Roman writers Pliny and Martial.

Perotti was born in Fano, studied with the educationalists Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino, and then entered the household of, first, William Gray, and then Cardinal Bessarion (whose life he described in 1472). Like most humanists, Perotti was not averse to scholarly controversy: he openly criticized Domizio Calderini for his work on Martial. Perotti's own Martial commentary was presented in the Cornucopia, which was printed only after his death. His posthumous fame perhaps rested not only on this work but equally – maybe even more so – on his grammatical writings, which gained Europe-wide popularity: in 1480s Oxford, for example, it was a source for John Anwykyll's textbook.