CRIVELLUCCI, AMEDEO. - Historian, born in Acquaviva Picena on 20 April 1850, died in Rome on 11 November 1914. He was professor of Modern History at the University of Pisa from 1885 to 1907, when he was called to the same position in Rome.
He began with the study *Del governo popolare in Firenze e del suo ordinamento secondo il Guicciardini* (Pisa 1877), and with *I primi saggi della storiografia fiorentina* (Rome 1882); but soon he turned his research to the relations between the State and the Church from their origins and particularly in the Lombard age. *Storia delle relazioni tra lo Stato e la Chiesa* (vols. I and II, Bologna 1885-86) spans from the earliest times of Christianity to the fall of the Western Empire and thence to the end of the pontificate of Gregory the Great. Yet where the rationalism of the eighteenth century, which led him to approach Giannone, and his impetuous passion are best tempered, is in vol. III, on the origins of the Papal State (Pisa 1909), though it was surpassed by the studies and conclusions of Duchesne. The work as a whole suffers from a certain monotony and from excessive textual labour, forcing the texts beyond their meaning. He proved himself a better scholar in his particular contributions (such as those on Church and Empire at the time of Pelagius II and Gregory II [1892] or on *Le Chiese cattoliche ed i Longobardi ariani in Italia* [1895-96]) than in comprehensive works, owing to a lack of general ideas and a scepticism regarding the supreme values of history, which derived from the philological method he had learned in Berlin and later introduced into Italy. This led to his disaffection for general questions and his greater attention to methodology and heuristics, which prompted him to translate only the relevant parts of Bernheim’s *Manual* (Pisa 1897) and to undertake vast bibliographical enterprises, such as the *Annuario bibliografico della storia d’Italia*, edited with Monticolo and then alone from 1904 to 1913 (a perfect working tool). The same may be said of his editions of Paul the Deacon’s *Historia Romana* and Landolfo Sagace’s *Historia romana* (Rome 1912-13), and of the journal *Studi storici*, which he strove to publish from 1892 until his death, at great personal sacrifice.
