CIASCA, AGOSTINO. — Augustinian cardinal, born at Polignano a Mare (Bari) on 7 May 1835, died on 6 February 1902. A learned Orientalist, he participated in the Vatican Council as theologian and interpreter for the Eastern bishops. In 1879 he undertook an important papal mission to Egypt and the Eastern regions. On that occasion he examined and largely corrected the Syriac Breviary, and acquired for the Propaganda Fide important manuscripts, almost all of them Christian Arabic.
He also served as Prefect of the Vatican Archives, titular archbishop of Larissa (1891), delegate of the Holy See as president of the Ruthenian Synod of Lviv the same year, and Secretary of the Propaganda Fide (1893). He was created cardinal in June 1899.
He left many works; among those published the following are noteworthy: I papiri copti del museo Borgiano... tradotti e commentati (Rome 1881); Tatiani Diatessaron seu Evangeliorum harmoniae Arabicae (Rome 1888); Sacrorum Bibliorum fragmenta Copto-sahidica musei Borgiani... (2 vols., Rome 1888; he had prepared the third volume, but was unable to complete it before his death; it was published by G. Balestri, Sacr. Bibliorum fragmenta Copto-sah., III, Novum Testamentum, Rome 1904); Acta et decreta Synodi provincialis Routhenorum, habitae Leopoli an. 1891 (Rome 1896).