COLCUCCI, GIUSEPPE. - Archaeologist and historian of the Marches, b. at Penna S. Giovanni (archdiocese of Fermo) on 19 March 1752, d. at Fermo on 16 March 1809.
Having completed his early studies in his native place, he continued them at Fermo from 1767 under the guidance of the Jesuits. Ordained priest in 1775, he took a degree in jurisprudence at the local university, where shortly afterwards he was appointed “lecturer” in the Faculty of Law. Appointed apostolic protonotary in September 1784, he was admitted as a member by many academies.
His main efforts were directed to the study of the regional antiquities, which had attracted him from his youth by the imposing ruins of ancient Faleria (now Piane di Falerone). He began with: Delle antiche città picene Faleria e Tignio (Fermo 1777; with appendix, Macerata 1778) and continued at Macerata with Cupra Marittima antica città picena (1779), Treja antica città picena, oggi Montecchio (1780), Del Castello navale degli antichi Fermani (1783), Memorie istoriche della antica Terra di Monte Rubiano, Osservazioni critiche e Lettere apologetiche.
From the particular history of places he moved on to the general history of the whole region: Dei primi abitatori del Piceno (Fermo 1781 and 1785), Dei vari confini del Piceno (ibid. 1785), Dei vari popoli che hanno abitato il Piceno (ibid. 1785) and Delle varie Metropoli del Piceno (ibid. 1785); and, relying on the collaboration of others, he conceived the vast plan of collecting the ancient records of all the localities of the Picenum, for which purpose he also set up a printing press.
Thus were born the in-folio volumes of the Antichità picene, which still constitute, for scholars, the principal source of their researches.
The first volume (Fermo 1786) was dedicated to Pius VI, who, having greatly appreciated it, ordered, by a chirograph of 27 June 1786, that “each city, town or castle of the Picenum should be supplied with a copy of the work of the historian of the Marches.” In 1796 there appeared, “from the presses of the author,” volume XXX entirely devoted to his native place (Memorie istoriche della Terra di Pennasangioanni).
The work was interrupted at volume XXXI (to which are added 4 fascicles of plates, considered as volume XXXII) by the political events of the Jacobin and Napoleonic period, which forced C., who had intended to publish further works on the diplomatics of the Picenum and on the illustrious men of the region, to cease all activity.
From 1800 C. would have resumed the suspended works, had not his intimate friend C. Brancadoro, created cardinal and bishop of Orvieto, forced him to follow him as his vicar general in that diocese. When Cardinal Brancadoro was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Fermo, his native city (1803), he confirmed C. as his vicar general.
From the dispersal of the rich library and archive of C., the Comunale Library of Macerata saved, in 1932-33, the principal part of the archive, namely that in which are preserved the 20 still unpublished volumes of the Antichità picene (cf. G. Spadoni, in La Biblioteca comunale Mozzi-Borgetti di Macerata, historical-bibliographical report on the 50th anniversary of its opening, Macerata 1937, pp. 21-25).
C. is regarded as the “Muratori of the Marches.”