BACCCHINI, BENEDETTO. — Benedictine monk and distinguished historian, born in Borgo S. Donnino on 31 August 1631, died in Bologna on 1 September 1721.
His earliest literary activity was devoted to continuing (1686–90) the publication of the Giornale de’ Letterati d’Italia, which had been begun by others but not continued in Rome. Having been appointed librarian to the Duke of Modena, he planned to publish the unpublished work of Agnellus of Ravenna, the Liber Pontificalis seu vitae Pontificum Ravennatum; but preparatory studies convinced him to precede it with another, more general work, the De ecclesiasticae hierarchiae originibus dissertatio (Modena 1703), in which, after discussing the government of the Roman Empire and that of the Jews at the time of Jesus Christ, he treats the origins of the Italian metropolitan sees and, in particular, that of Ravenna. The work, dense with erudition, aroused wonder and strong opposition, for Baccchini maintained in it the fundamental thesis of the absolute initial distinction between ecclesiastical and civil government, and he had to defend it vigorously, supported by Cardinals G. A. Tommasi and D. Ferrari. Agnellus’s Liber Pontificalis was published in Modena in 1708, enriched with dissertations, notes, and appendices; it was later reprinted by Muratori in Rerum Ital. Script., II, Milan 1733, pp. 1–220. Mazzucchelli provides a life of Baccchini and a broad catalogue of his many other published and unpublished works in II, 1, pp. 8–11; I. Affò, Memorie degli scrittori e letterati Parmigiani, V, Parma 1797, pp. 345–420; and A. Pezzana, in Continuazione delle Memorie degli scrittori e letterati Parmigiani, vol. I of the Appendix, ibid. 1825, pp. 864–908.