Caelius Rhodiginus

{{short description|15th/16th century Venetian writer and professor in Greek and Latin.}}

File: Giambattista Piazzetta, Ritratto di Celio Rodigino, Pinacoteca dell'Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo.jpg, Ritratto di Celio Rodigino, pinacoteca dell'Accademia e del seminario a Palazzo Roverella, Rovigo.]]

Caelius Rhodiginus (born Lodovico Ricchieri; 1469, Rovigo–1525, Rovigo) was a Venetian writer, and professor in Greek and Latin.

His original name was Ludovico or Lodovico Celio Ricchieri. He took the name Rhodiginus from his birthplace, Rovigo.Hugh James Rose, A New General Biographical Dictionary,1853 He studied at Ferrara and Padua. He was a professor in Greek and Latin at Rovigo from 1491-9, and again from 1503-4.Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas B. Deutscher, (2003), Contemporaries of Erasmus: a biographical register of the Register of the Renaissance and Reformation, Volume 3, page 155. University of Toronto Press He was sacked by the council of Rovigo on 26 May 1504 because of his high-handedness in dealing with the city. Avery Colobert, "Choisir et utiliser ses amis dans les préfaces dédicatoires des Lectiones antiquae de Coelius Rhodiginus", Camenae n°31, 2024, p. 1-45 He subsequently taught in many places including Bologna, Vicenza, Padua, and Ferrara. In 1515, he became the chair of Greek at Milan; he returned to Rovigo in 1523, and died two years later. His pupil Julius Caesar Scaliger described him as the Varro of his age.

His principal work was the Antiquarum Lectionum in sixteen books published in 1516 in Venice at the Aldine Press. It was a collection of notes on the classics and general topics. Rhodiginus continued to collect materials towards producing a new edition, and the book was posthumously expanded to thirty books and published under the editorship of his nephew Camillo Ricchieri and G. M. Goretti in 1542 at Basle. He also wrote commentaries on Virgil, Ovid, and Horace.