CIAMPINI, GIOVANNI GIUSTINO. — Born in Rome on 13 April 1633, died there on 12 July 1698.
A skilled jurist, he subsequently held highly important offices in the Roman Curia. In 1671, at the Urban College of Propaganda Fide, he founded the Ecclesiastical Academy, later called the Academy of the Councils, for the study of councils and canons and of questions of scholastic and moral theology. In 1673, in his own residence, he founded a second academy devoted to philosophy and the sciences, and transformed the house into a museum of antiquities, with a collection of scientific machines and instruments. A third series of meetings was held at his home to discuss literary subjects. C.’s preferred field was that of sacred and profane monuments, studied directly; he often accompanied Mabillon on visits to them, as Mabillon recalls in his Iter Italicum.
Not everything C. wrote has been published; his fundamental works are: Examen Libri Pontificalis sive vitarum Romanorum Pontificum (Rome 1688), presented to Pope Innocent XI; it consists of original observations on the famous collection of biographies of the popes. This was followed by Veterni monumenta, in quibus praecipue musiva opera sacrarum, profanarumque aedium structura, ac nonnullis antiqui ritus dissertationibus iconibusque illustrantur. Pars I a primo Christi saeculo ad quintum (Rome 1690); Part 2 was published posthumously in 1699; a new edition, in three volumes, edited by C. Giannini, appeared in 1747. It deals extensively with the most distinguished churches of Rome, Italy, and other countries, with particular reference to the mosaics of those churches. Another work, De sacris aedificiis a Constantino Magno constructis historia (Rome 1693), concerns the churches of Rome and other countries built by Constantine or attributed to him.