Federico Gallo

Onofrio Steccuti de’ Visdomini was born in Florence in 1338 ca., entered the Augustinian order and became a magister in theology at Paris not later than 1372. Subsequently he was elected bishop of Volterra in 1384 and of Florence in 1390. In 1400, probably for political reasons, pope Boniface IX removed Onofrio from Florence and trasferred him to the see of Comacchio; but he renounced and retired to religious life in the Augustinian friary of Santo Spirito in Florence, where he died in 1403. Several works have been attributed to Onofrio, only one appears to survive: a hitherto unpublished Rethorica, a sort of handbook based on Cicero’s De inventione and ad Herennium. It is known by a unique manuscript, Ambr. B 161 sup., copied in the middle of the XV century for the Augustinian friary of Santa Maria Incoronata in Milan. In this MS, beside Onofrio’s Rhetorica, there are: ps. Aristotle, Rhetorica and Plutarch, Apophthegmata in the latin translation by Francesco Filelfo; Frontinus, Strategemata and Sicco Polenton, Liber Exemplorum.