CIAMPINI, GIOVANNI GIUSTINO. – Born in Rome on 13 Apr. 1633, died there on 12 July 1698.
A skilled jurist, he later held very important offices in the Roman Curia. In 1671 he founded at the Urban College of Propaganda Fide the Accademia ecclesiastica, later called dei Concili, for the study of councils, canons, and questions of scholastic and moral theology. In 1673, in his own residence, he established a second academy devoted to philosophy and the sciences, and transformed the house into a museum of antiquities, with a collection of machines and scientific instruments. A third series of meetings was held at his home to discuss literary topics. CIAMPINI’s preferred field was that of sacred and profane monuments, which he studied directly, often accompanying MABILLON on visits to them, as the latter recalls in his Iter Italicum.
Not everything written by CIAMPINI was published; his major works are: Examen Libri Pontificalis sive vitarium Romanorum Pontificum (Rome 1688), presented to Pope Innocent XI; it consists of original observations on the well-known collection of papal biographies. This is followed by Vetera monimenta, in quibus praecipue missiva opera sacrarum, profanarumque aedium structura, ac nonnullis antiqui ritus dissertationibus iconibusque illustrantur. Pars I a primo Christi saeculo ad quintum (Rome 1690); the second part was published posthumously in 1699; a new edition in three volumes, edited by C. Giannini, appeared in 1747; it deals extensively with the most notable churches of Rome, Italy, and abroad, with special reference to their musical traditions. 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.