Onofrio Panvinio (Latin: Onuphrius Panvinius; 23 February 1529 – 27 April 1568) was an Italian Augustinian friar, historian and antiquary who was the librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.
Panvinio was born in Verona. At the age of eleven, he entered the order of Order of Saint Augustine and in 1539 he went to Rome and became fascinated by the city, whose topography, epigraphy, history ancient and medieval, writers and great papal families he would document through a spectacularly productive brief lifetime.
After graduating in Rome with a Bachelor of Arts in 1553 and teaching the novices of his order in Rome and Florence, in 1557, he obtained the degree of Doctor of Theology. He visited the libraries of Italy, pursuing historical research and went to Germany in 1559. Refusing the position of bishop, he accepted the more welcome office of corrector and reviser of the books of the Vatican Library in 1556. He died in Palermo while accompanying his friend and protector, Cardinal Farnese, to the Synod of Monreale, 1568.
He was recognized as one of the greatest church historians and archaeologists of his time. The scholarly printer Paulus Manutius called him antiquitatis helluo ("a glutton for antiquity"), and Julius Caesar Scaliger styled him pater omnis historiae ("father of all history").
His great archaeological map of ancient Rome was produced in 1565. About the same time, he began to collaborate with the French engraver Étienne Dupérac, who continued to provide illustrations for posthumous printings of Panvinio's works. Not all of his numerous historical, theological, archaeological, and liturgical works were published, even posthumously; some are preserved in manuscript in the Vatican Library.
His portrait by Tintoretto is in the Galleria Colonna.
Fasti et triumphi Romanorum a Romulo usque ad Carolum V, (Giacomo Strada, Venice, 1557), "Fasti and triumphs of the Romans from Romulus to Charles V";
A revised edition of Carolus Sigonius's Fasti consulares (Venice, 1558);
De comitiis imperatoriis (Basel, 1558);
De republica Romana (Venice, 1558); "On the Roman Republic";
Epitome Romanorum pontificum (Venice, 1557); "Brief history of the Roman pontiffs";
A revised edition of Bartolomeo Platina's De vitis pontificum (Venice); "On the lives of the popes";
XXVII Pontif. Max. elogia et imagines (Rome, 1568); "Elogies and images of twenty-seven pontiffs";
De sibyllis et carminibus sibyllinis (Venice, 1567) ("Of sibyls and Sibylline oracles");
Chronicon ecclesiasticum a C. Julii Caesaris tempore usque ad imp. Maximilianum II (Cologne, 1568); "Ecclesiastical chronicle from the time of Julius Caesar to that of Emperor Maximilian";
De episcopatibus, titulis, et diaconiis cardinalium (Venice, 1567);"of the bishoprics, tituli and diaconates of the cardinals";
De ritu sepeliendi mortuos apud veteres Christianos (Cologne, 1568); "Of burial rites for the dead among the early Christians";
De praecipuis urbis Romae santioribusque basilicis (Rome, 1570; Cologne, 1584);