Cyriacus of Ancona and antiquarianism

Cyriacus (or Ciriaco De' Pizzicolli) was in Italian merchant and humanist with an indefatigable interest in antiquities. His writings – among the first to be based on first-hand observations – had a profound effect on later archaeological surveys and classical scholarship.

He travelled extensively making detailed descriptions and drawings of ancient monuments, and copying hundreds of inscriptions. Cyriacus visited Butrint on two occasions in 1435 and 1436, describing it as antiquam in Epiro Troiani Heleni Civitatem – the ancient city of Helenus and Andromache.

While at Butrint he recorded two Latin inscriptions. One was a funerary inscription dedicated to a married couple and their freedman, a certain Titus Pomponius Lupercus – a name that recalls the influence and patronage exercised by the millionaire Titus Pomponius Atticus in the late first century BC. The other was a fragmentary piece, which Cyriacus recorded as IMP. M’. OTACINIUS. He interpreted this as a dedication to the third-century AD empress Marcia Otacilia Severa. However, it is possible that it was rather a dedication to an emperor by the Otacilius family – the same family who also dedicated a shrine to Minerva in the forum of Butrint.

Most of all, Cyriacus was interested in antiquities, and everywhere he travelled people were willing to show him things. This was the case also at Butrint where he examined statues and ancient monuments. The Venetians clearly had a keen awareness of the antiquities to be found here and of their importance. Indeed, in 1800 a French writer claimed that the best antiquities of Butrint were to be found in the private collections of Venetian generals – plundered from the ruins of the site.

Unfortunately, none of the objects recorded by Cyriacus survive; his legacy is of another nature. The care of Cyriacus’ search for antiquities, and his re-identification of Butrint through the prism of its mythological Trojan past, would remain important aspects of the antiquarian and artistic interests in Butrint for several centuries.