COLUCCI, GIUSEPPE. - Archaeologist and historian of the Marche, b. at Penna S. Giovanni (archdiocese of Fermo) on 19 March 1752, d. at Fermo on 16 March 1809.
After his first studies in his native town, he continued them at Fermo from 1767 under the guidance of the Jesuits. A priest in 1775, he took his degree in jurisprudence at the local university, where shortly afterwards he was appointed "lecturer" in the faculty of Law. Protonotary apostolic in Sept. 1784, he was enrolled as a member by many academies.
His principal efforts were directed to the study of regional antiquities, to which he had been attracted since boyhood by the conspicuous ruins of ancient Faleria (today Piane di Falerone). He made his debut with: Delle antiche città picene Faleria e Tignio (Fermo 1777; with appendix, Macerata 1778) and continued at Macerata with Cupra Marittima antica città picene (1779), Treja antica città picene, oggi Montecchio (1780), Del Castello navale degli antichi Fermani (1783), Memorie istoriche della antica Terra di Monte Rubbiano, Osservazioni critiche e Lettere apologetiche.
From the particular history of individual places he passed 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 design of collecting the ancient records of all the localities of the Piceno, and for this purpose he also set up a printing press.
Thus were born the folio volumes of the Antichità picene, which still today constitute, for scholars, the principal source of their research.
The first vol. (Fermo 1786) was dedicated to Pius VI, who, having esteemed it greatly, ordered, by a chirograph of 27 June 1786, that "each city, town or castle of the Piceno should provide itself with a copy of the Marche historian's work". In 1796 there appeared, "from the author's presses", vol. XXX entirely devoted to his native town (Memorie istoriche della Terra di Pennasangiovanni).
The work was interrupted at vol. XXXI (to which are added 4 fascicles of plates, considered as vol. XXXII) by the political events of the Jacobin and Napoleonic period, which forced C., who had in mind to publish also on Picene diplomatics and on the illustrious men of the region, to cease all work.
With the year 1800, C. would have resumed the suspended works, had not his close friend C. Brancadoro, made cardinal and bishop of Orvieto, forced him to follow him as vicar general of that diocese. When card. Brancadoro was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Fermo, his native city (1803), he confirmed C. as vicar general.
From the dispersal of C.'s rich library and archive, the Biblioteca Comunale of Macerata saved, in 1932-33, the principal portion of the archive, that is, the one in which are preserved the 20 still unpublished volumes of the Picene antiquities (cf. G. Spadoni, in La Biblioteca comunale Mozzi-Borgetti di Macerata, relazione storico-bibl. nel CL anniversario della inaugurazione, Macerata 1937, pp. 21-25).
C. is considered the "Muratori of the Marche."
Bibliography7 works
Igino Cecchetti