_Platina_, so called from the _Latin_ name of _Piadena_, a village in the _Cremonese_, the place of his nativity (for his true name was _Battista_, or _Bartolomeo Sacchi_) flourished six hundred years after _Anastasius_, that is, in the fifteenth century, under _Calixtus_ III. _Pius_ II. _Paul_ II. and _Sixtus_ IV. Under _Pius_ II. he was Secretary of the _Datary_, the office where vacant benefices are disposed of; but, being dismissed by _Paul_ II. tho’ he had purchased the place, in the height of his resentment, he appealed to the _future Council_. What he suffered under that Pope, first in prison, and afterwards on the rack, we shall hear from himself, in a more proper place. _Sixtus_ IV. the successor of _Paul_, well apprised of his innocence, took him into favour, and, having enlarged, endowed, and enriched the _Vatican_ library with a great number of valuable books, in different languages, he committed the care of them to him. It was probably at this time that he wrote, or rather transcribed, the Lives of the Popes from St. _Peter_, whom he supposes the founder of that See, to _Paul_ II. who died in 1471. I say _transcribed_; for, if we except the few Popes who lived in or near his own times, _viz._ _Eugene_ IV. _Nicolas_ V. _Calixtus_ III. _Pius_ II. and _Paul_ II. he copied, almost verbatim, all he has said of the rest, only interweaving now and then the profane history with the ecclesiastic[2]. The Lives of the fourteen succeeding Popes, from _Paul_ II. to _Pius_ V. elected in 1566. were compiled by _Onuphrius Panvinius_, of the _Augustin_ order, a man more commendable for his learning, than for his candor and veracity. These are, as we may style them, the original compilers of the Lives of the Popes: _Platina_ adopted _Anastasius_’s concise method of writing, and _Panvinius_, _Platina_’s, contenting themselves with bare hints; and thereby putting their readers to the trouble of consulting other writers, in order to gratify the curiosity they had raised. _Much has been said of the Popes by other Historians, but very little by their own_, as the learned _Pagi_ observed, after comparing the authors I have mentioned, with the contemporary Historians of other nations. I might well add, that the _very little_ they have said has been thought too much; whence some of them, and _Platina_ in particular, have been made, in all their Editions since the middle of the sixteenth century, to speak with more reserve, and to suppress or disguise some truths they had formerly told.