Stefano Infessura (1436–1500)
Born 1436 CE, died 1500 CE.
Stefano Infessura (c. 1435 – c. 1500) was an Italian humanist historian and lawyer. He is remembered through his municipalist Diary of the City of Rome, a partisan chronicle of events at Rome by the Colonna family's point of view. He was in a position to hear everything that circulated in informed Roman circles, for he was the longtime secretary of the Roman Senate. Anecdotes that Infessura relates may be colored by his own partisan nature, but his diary faithfully records news that was making the rounds in the city, whether true or not; "he inserted every fragment of the most preposterous and malevolent gossip current in Roman society, and is therefore not considered a reliable chronicler" (New Catholic Dictionary). Infessura's diary, partly in Latin and partly in ancient Romanesco, the Diarium urbis Romae (Diario della Città di Roma) is of special firsthand value for the pontificates of Paul II (1464-1471), Sixtus IV (1471-1484), Innocent VIII (1484-1492), and the beginning of Alexander VI's pontificate. Infessura took a degree of Doctor of Laws and served as a judge, before he came to the University of Rome as professor of Roman law.
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