Alfarano, Tiberio

ALFARANO, TIBERIO. - Born at Gerace (Reggio Calabria), by 1544 he was already serving at St. Peter's, and from 1567 he was a benefited cleric there. He died in 1596, leaving his property to the Company of the Most Holy Sacrament and his rich library to the Jesuits. Through his own devotion and at the urging of the canon Giacomo Ercolano, he resolved to preserve for posterity the memory of what was being demolished in those years of the primitive basilica of St. Peter for the sake of Michelangelo's new construction. At first he conceived his work as a supplement to the descriptions of Pietro di Manlio and Vegio (v.), but later as a continuous commentary on a small-scale plan of the old basilica which he himself had drawn up on several occasions (1571, 1576, 1582). An engraving of the plan was made in copper and published in 1590; the text, however, remained unpublished, though a definitive copy was presented to Gregory XIII in 1582. The autograph, which survives, continued to be corrected by the A. until his death. These notes of the A. and his plan are, together with the Instrumenta authentica of Grimaldi (v.), the richest and most important sources for knowledge of the ancient basilica of St. Peter; accurate and trustworthy in everything the A. says he saw, they were widely exploited by all who wrote on that subject afterwards, often without citing the source. - See Pl. LXIV.

Antonio Ferrua