Luca Holstenius

Luca Holstenius (Luca Holste) was born in Hamburg on 27 September 1596. He died in Rome in February, 1661 and is buried there at S. Maria dell'Anima. Holstenius studied at Leyden with J. Meursius, H. Grotius, Vossius, D. Heinsius, and especially P. Cluverius, with whom he visited Italy and did geographical research. In 1627 he moved to Rome, living at first at the palace of Cardinal Barberini, who became his principal patron. In 1641 he was named Librarian of the Vatican Library by Pope Innocent X, and he continued in the post under Alexander VII. As a scholar, he specialized in geography. His method was simple: he always sought to combine the ancient sources (many of which he hoped to edit) with an autopsy of the actual sites. For students of Horace's villa, Holstenius is important as he was the first scholar who located Horace's fanum Vacunae (the shrine of Vacuna, mentioned in Epistles 1.10.49) in Roccagiovine on the basis of the inscription commemorating Vespasian's restoration of the shrine of Victoria (=Vacuna?); see his posthumously published Annotationes in Geographiam sacram Caroli a S. Paulo, Italiam antiquam Cluuerii, et Thesaurum geographicum Ortelii: quibus accedit Dissertatio duplex de sacramento confirmationis apud graecos (Rome 1666) 106.