head in the Holy of Holies and calls him "ille mendaciorum loquacissimus", 'the most loquacious of liars'. In the 4th century there are scattered references to his life and work. Flavius Vopiscus, one of the supposed Scriptores Historiae Augustae, mentions him twice (Aurelian 2.1, Probus 2.7.) and names him among the disertissimi viri, the most eloquent men. Ammianus Marcellinus, as mentioned, started his history where Tacitus had finished. Jerome knew of him, and Sulpicius Severus either used his Annales as a source for passages on Nero or, according to Aurthur Drews, the passage in Sulpicius Severus's Chronicles later found its way into Annales. By the 5th century only a few authors seem aware of him: Sidonius Apollinaris, who admires him, and Orosius, who alternately derides him as a fool and borrows passages (including many that are otherwise lost) from his works. Cassiodorus and his disciple Jordanes (middle of the 6th century) make the last known antique references; Cassiodorus draws on parts of the Germania and Jordanes cites the Agricola, but both know the author only as Cornelius. After Jordanes, Tacitus disappeared from literature for the better part of two centuries, and only four certain references appear until 1360. Two come from Frankish monks of the Carolingian Renaissance: the Annales Fuldenses from the monastery of Fulda used Tacitus's Annals, and Rudolf of Fulda borrowed from the Germania for his Translatio Sancti Alexandri. Some of Tacitus's works were known at Monte Cassino by 1100, where the other two certain references appear: Peter the Deacon's Vita Sancti Severi used the Agricola, and Paulinus Venetus, Bishop of Pozzuoli, plagiarized passages from the Annals in his mappa mundi. Hints and reminiscences of Tacitus appear in French and English literature, as well as German and Italian, from the 12th to the 14th century, but none of them are at all certain. It was not until Giovanni Boccaccio brought the manuscript of the Annals 11-16 and the Histories out of Monte Cassino to Florence, in the 1360s or 1370s, that Tacitus began to regain some of his old literary importance. His Annals survive only in single copies of two halves of the works, one from Fulda and one from Cassino. Italian Renaissance Boccaccio's efforts brought the works of Tacitus back into public circulation—where they were largely passed over by the Humanists of the 14th and 15th centuries, who preferred the smooth style of Cicero and the patriotic