Colocci was a Latin poet of some reputation among his learned contemporaries, an antiquarian whose understanding of ancient metrology and sacrificial implements were particularly outstanding, and a savant collector of Roman sculptures, inscriptions, medals and carved gems. His collection of sculptures was mentioned by Andrea Fulvio in "Antiquitates Urbis" (1527), a topographical guide to the city's ancient Roman ruins and remains. In connection with Pope Leo X's commission to Raphael to draw the most accurate possible reconstruction of the Rome of the Caesars, Angelo Colocci and Baldassare Castiglione drafted the courtly covering letter, with emendations by Raphael, that was enclosed with the final project. A proportion of his considerable fortune was also expended in amassing one of the most impressive private libraries of his time, brutally treated at the Sack of Rome, in 1527, when Colucci was forced to pay exorbitant bribes to preserve his own life. Colocci had the foresight to send some of his manuscripts for safekeeping in Florence. The remaining Colocci manuscripts in the Vatican Library still number over two hundred, even after Napoleonic depredations removed Provençal lyrics to the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris— for Colocci was one of the first to search out and assemble Provençal poetry. The Greek printing press of Rome was under his care, for he was the patron of the Greek academy founded in Rome by Janus Lascaris; it met in his villa from 1516 to 1521. Colocci was involved in the translation of Vitruvius' "De architectura" into Italian on Raphael's behest, done by the venerable Marco Fabio Calvo of Ravenna and based on the 1511 edition of Fra Giocondo; Raphael's own copy of it, preserved in Munich, bears Colocci's notes and emendations as well as Raphael's own.