In 1454 the Archbishopric of Bari was conferred upon him, which made it possible for him to take up his residence in Rome, the See of Trani being given to his brother, John Orsini, Abbot of Farfa.
Peter Pisanus, in his Vita Paschalis II refers to Ptolemy and the abbot of Farfa as the allies of the emperor in the same way that the Saints Peter and Paul were the allies of the pope.
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Soon, Ptolemy, along with the Berald of Farfa (abbot of Farfa) and Peter Colonna, rebelled against papal authority.
Farfa | Peter of Farfa | Hilderic of Farfa | Benedict of Farfa | Vitalis of Farfa | John I of Farfa | Farfa Abbey |
According to the tradition, he afterwards became enamoured of the monastic life, and chose a wooded hill near the Farfa stream, a tributary of the Tiber, on which he built a church and a monastery.
In 817 Pope Stephen IV issued a bull claiming that Farfa's lands lay within the Papal patrimonium sabinense (Sabine patrimony) and under Papal ius (jurisdiction), and that therefore the abbey owed the Holy See an annual rent (pensio) of ten gold solidi.
To them is probably due the obscurity of Farfa's abbots during the period from Perto, who succeeded Hilderic, to Peter, who rescued his monks and his library from the Saracens.
In a court run by a bishop and a representative of the emperor, and in the presence of Gregory, Ingoald, the Abbot of Farfa, claimed that the Frankish emperors had granted them the lands, and that Popes Adrian I and Leo III had taken possession of the land illegally.