CATALANI, MICHELE. — A patrician of Fermo, where he was born on 27 September 1750; he died in Bologna on 10 May 1805. In the local schools of the Jesuits, he was a pupil of Morelli and Lanzi. Admitted to the Society of Jesus on 20 November 1766, after its suppression (1773) he became part of the diocesan clergy and devoted himself to historical and archaeological research, rising to great fame.
On 18 March 1782 he was appointed a canon of the Metropolitan Church. He was buried in the Charterhouse of Bologna.
A scholar of vigorous intellectual character, he left many works, all excellent for their judicious criticism and elegant literary style, especially in Latin. The following may be mentioned: 1) Della origini dei Piceni (Fermo 1777); 2) Origini e antichità fermane (there 1778), both included in G. Colucci’s Antichità picene (I and II); 3) Memorie della Zecca e delle monete fermane (Bologna 1782), included in vol. III of G. A. Zanetti’s Nuova raccolta delle monete e Zecche d'Italia; 4) De Ecclesia Firmana, eiusque episcopis et archiepiscopis commentarius (Fermo 1783), from which all subsequent historians, both from Fermo and elsewhere, have drawn; 5) Memorie storiche di s. Vittoria V. e m. (Camerino 1778, Fabriano 1807).
He edited the commentary of Enea S. Piccolomini (Pius II), De rebus Basilicae gestis stante vel dissoluto concilio, according to the Vatican manuscript, previously forgotten (Fermo 1803), as well as the second edition, with changes and additions, of the Vita di s. Fernando, a Benedictine abbot, written by G. Marsigliano (there 1784). His commentary De vita et scriptis Dominici Capranica (there 1793) is also very important. Other works of his remained unpublished.