Fenestella, Roman historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and encyclopaedic writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, flourished in the reign of Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

. If the notice in Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

 is correct, he lived from 52 BC to AD 19 (according to others 35 BC - AD 36).

Taking Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

 for his model, Fenestella was one of the chief representatives of the new style of historical writing which, in the place of the brilliant descriptive pictures of Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

, discussed curious and out-of-the-way incidents and customs of political and social life, including literary history. He was the author of an Annales, probably from the earliest times down to his own days.

The fragments indicate the great variety of subjects discussed: the origin of the appeal to the people (provocatio); the use of elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

s in the circus games; the wearing of gold rings; the introduction of the olive tree; the material for making the toga; the cultivation of the soil; certain details as to the lives of Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 and Terence

Terence

Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...

. The work was very much used (mention is made of an abridged edition) by Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

, Asconius Pedianus

Asconius Pedianus

Quintus Asconius Pedianus , Roman grammarian and historian, was probably a native of Patavium .In his later years he resided in Rome, and there he died, after having been blind for twelve years, at the age of eighty-five. During the reigns of Claudius and Nero he compiled for his sons, from various...

 (the commentator on Cicero), Nonius

Nonius Marcellus

Nonius Marcellus was a Roman grammarian of the 4th or 5th century AD. His only surviving work is the De compendiosa doctrina, a dictionary or encyclopedia in 20 books that shows his interests in antiquarianism and Latin literature from Plautus to Apuleius. Nonius may have come from...

, and the philologists.

A work published under the name of L. Fenestella (De magistratibus et sacerdotiis Romanorum, 1510) is really by A. D. Fiocchi, canon and papal secretary, and was subsequently published as by him (under the Latinized form of his name, Floccus), edited by Aegidius Witsius (1561).