Tommaso Inghirami

Tommaso Inghirami
Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami (ca. 1509) by Raphael (1483-1520)
Born	1470 Volterra
Died	1516
Other names	Phaedra, Phaedrus, Fedra
Occupation	Deacon of the Papal Chapel, Prefect of the Palatine Library,

Tommaso Inghirami (1470–5/6 September 1516) (also known as Phaedra, Phaedrus, or Fedra) was a Renaissance humanist and a deacon of the Catholic Church.

Tommaso Inghirami was born in Volterra in 1470, the son of Paolo Inghirami and of his wife Lucrezia Barlettani. His father, a prominent man in Volterra, was killed in a political uprising in 1472. After the murder, Paolo's children were taken to Florence. Later, at a young age, Tommaso was sent to Rome to live under the protection of Bishop Jacopo Gherardi and Tommaso's uncle, Antonio Inghirami, a secretary to Pope Sixtus IV.

In 1486, Inghirami played Phaedra in a performance of Seneca's Phaedra staged by Giovanni Sulpizio da Veroli and Raffaele Riario, with support from the Roman Academy of Julius Pomponius Laetus. After this performance, he was known by the nickname "Phaedra" for the rest of his life.

A member of the Roman intellectual elite, Inghirami was praised by Ludovico Ariosto, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Paolo Giovio, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Angelo Colocci.

Inghirami moved to Rome where he was ordained as a deacon of the Papal Chapel in April 1493. In 1495, Inghirami was invited to the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva to delivered his Panegyricus in memoriam divi Thomae Aquinatis for the annual March 7 celebration of the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas for the Dominican Studium generale, the future Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.