De Rossi, Giovanni Battista

DE ROSSI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Archaeologist, founder of the science of Christian archaeology, b. in Rome on 22 February 1822, d. in the pontifical palace at Castel Gandolfo on 20 September 1894. Having completed his humanistic and philosophical studies at the Roman College, he moved to the faculty of jurisprudence of the University of Rome, where, in 1843, he obtained the degree "ad honorem in utroque iure"; but he was inexpressibly drawn toward archaeological studies, so much so that he himself declared "the Roma sotterranea of Bosio was always more welcome to me than the Decretum of Gratian or the Corpus Iustinianum" (P. M. Baumgarten, 2nd ed., Rome 1892, p. 10). Already the previous year, on 20 July 1842, Fr. G. Marchi (v.) had caught him in the act of transcribing the Christian inscriptions in the crypt of St. Praxedes, and Card. A. Mai (v.) had caught him in the Lapidary Gallery in the Vatican, while he was transcribing Greek inscriptions. Through these two scholars the doors of the Roman catacombs and those of the Vatican Library were opened to the young Roman: he became the collaborator and devoted friend of the former, and from the latter he received the appointment as scrittore of the Vatican Library.

The first archaeological explorations diligently followed by him were those of the cemetery on the left of the Appian Way, then called that of St. Sixtus, which he later recognized as that of Praetextatus, between 1847 and 1850.

Here he had the opportunity to make his first fortunate observations on the chronological connections of the finds: "a clear light flashed in my mind there, and there I matured the design of the new Roma sotterranea" (thus he himself in Le cripte storiche del cimitero di Pretestato, in Bull. d'arch. crist., 2nd series, 3 [1872], pp. 63-64).

In fact, Christian antiquities up to that time had been cultivated in an eclectic and often empirical manner; the basis was erudition, not the rational critical method, which only D. R. introduced, that is, the comparative method between documents and monuments, since he recognized "that it was necessary to return to the path marked out by Bosio, and to do what he wished and could not," that is, to explore on the basis of the data provided by historical documents. D. R. completed his preparation for this method under the guidance of Bosio and of the historical and topographical documents recognized after him. At the meeting of 3 July 1852 of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology he set out the identification of the ancient Christian cemeteries of Rome on the basis of the topographical indications provided by the ancient calendars, the martyrologies, the other liturgical books and above all by the epigraphic sylloges and the itineraries of pilgrims. The exactness of his method was demonstrated by the discovery of the tomb of Pope Cornelius (d. 253), made in that area of the Appian Way where three years earlier he had identified in the above-ground structure a fragment of his epitaph.

This enabled him to recognize the exact location of the true cemetery of Callistus, whose name had until then been extended not only to all the underground galleries from the "Quo vadis?" to St. Sebastian and the via Ardeatina, but above all was recognized in the cemetery in catacumbas, where throughout the Middle Ages all the Christian memories of the via Appia had been gathered. There followed in 1854 the discovery of the crypt of the popes of the 3rd century, of the tomb of St. Cecilia; in 1856 that of St. Eusebius; in 1863 in Praetextatus; in 1864 he found the hypogeum that he considered to be that of the Flavii in Domitilla; in 1873 the basilica of Sts. Nereus, Achilleus and Petronilla; in 1882 the crypt of St. Hippolytus; in 1883 that of St. Felicitas; in 1888 the hypogeum of the Acilii and in 1890 the basilica of St. Silvester in Priscilla.

From 1863 he began the publication of his Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, which for thirty years he continued to edit alone until his death (1894), in order to illustrate the discoveries made not only in the Christian cemeteries of Rome, Italy and abroad, but also in the Christian basilicas and in the epigraphic, hagiographic and artistic field of the first centuries of Christianity. A French translation of his Bullettino was made first by Martigny and then by Duchesne up to 1883. In 1864 the first volume of his Roma sotterranea appeared, published by order of Pius IX. There he retraces the history of Christian antiquities from their origins up to his own times, followed by the analysis of the ancient topographical documents and by the description of the first part of the cemetery of Callistus, which was continued in the second volume, published in 1867, and in the third (1877), in which he completed the illustration of the cemetery of Callistus and also that of the cemetery of Generosa (v.) and summarized the history of the origin, development and administration of the ancient Christian cemeteries of Rome, and of their dependence on the urban tituli up to the time of the translations of the martyrs' relics within the city. The three volumes of De Rossi's Roma sotterranea aroused such admiration among scholars that compendia of them were soon compiled for the work of popularization. The first were J. Spencer Northcote and W. R. Brouwlow, The Roman Catacombs (London 1872); P. Allard, Rome souterraine. Résumé des découvertes de M. de Rossi dans les catacombes romaines et en particulier dans le cimetière de Calliste par J. Spencer Northcote et W. Brouwlow (Paris 1872, 2nd ed. ibid. 1874); F. X. Kraus, Roma sotterranea, Die römischen Katakomben. Eine Darstellung der älteren und neusten Forschungen mit Zugrundelegung des Werkes von J. Spencer Northcote und W. R. Brouwlow (Freiburg im Br. 1874).

The importance of De Rossi's studies and discoveries in the field of cemetery topography is no less than that in the sphere of Roman topography and of classical and Christian epigraphy.

In Roman topography De Rossi's first study dates from the year 1858: Le stazioni delle sette coorti dei Vigili (in Annali dell'Istituto di corrispondenza archeologica, 1858); in the same year he indicated the place where G. Henzen later found so many remains of the "Acts of the Arval Brethren." His most notable work in this field is that on the Piante iconografiche e prospettiche di Roma anteriori al secolo decimosesto (Rome 1879). It is a monumental history of the city from its origins up to the age of Augustus and Aurelian, followed by the study of the urban plans, from that painted in the portico of Polla in the Campus Martius to the Severan "forma Urbis"; from the schematic medieval plans to the 15th-century perspective view of Mantua. In 1882 he offered in the Studi e documenti di storia e diritto the Note di topografia romana raccolte dalla bocca di Pomponio Leto e il testo pomponiano della Notitia regionum Urbis Romae; in 1884 the Note di ruderi e monumenti antichi per la pianta di G. B. Nolli conservata nell'Archivio Vaticano (ibid.). He later illustrated the plan of Rome painted by Cimabue in Assisi (Bull. dell'Istituto, 1887). A drawing of the Roman Forum among the collections of the Escorial (ibid., 1888). The circular panorama of Rome drawn in 1534 by Martino Hensheere, a Dutch painter (Bullett. della commise. archeol. comm. di Roma, 1891); from 1886 to 1890 he published together with G. Gatti in the same periodical a Miscellanea di notizie bibliografiche e critiche per la topografia e la storia dei monumenti di Roma.

Theodor Mommsen in the preface to the third volume of the Corpus inscriptionum latinarum (Berlin 1873, p. vi) affirms that without the help of De Rossi, "Italiae lumen," the collection of Latin inscriptions would have had to neglect the manuscripts, as he himself had been forced to limit himself for the inscriptions of the Kingdom of Naples, whereas De Rossi had opened the way to the knowledge of the manuscripts not only of the Vatican Library and of the other libraries of the city of Rome, but of the libraries of Italy and of all other nations. With a letter in Latin of 22 Jan. 1854 the Academy of Berlin had officially invited him to collaborate on the Corpus inscriptionum latinarum and solemnly declared that it reserved to De Rossi himself the task of publishing the Christian inscriptions of Rome. From 1854 to 1858, in fact, in the Monatsberichte der K. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin there are periodic reports of the investigations carried out by De Rossi in all the libraries for epigraphic manuscripts. In classical epigraphy G. B. De Rossi had made his debut with the "Iscrizione onoraria di Nicomaco Flaviano" (in Annali dell'Istituto di corrisp. archeol., 1849, pp. 283-303).

From the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres he received, together with others, the task of overseeing the publication of the works of B. Borghesi (Oeuvres complètes de Bartolomeo Borghesi par les ordres et aux frais de S. M. l'Empereur Napoléon III, then sous les auspices de M. le Ministre de l'instruction publique, Paris 1862-97).

From his youth De Rossi began his work of collecting the ancient Christian inscriptions. A first essay was offered by him at the Pontificia accademia romana di archeologia on 3 Apr. 1851 with his dissertation on the collection of the Christian inscriptions of Rome of the first six centuries, published posthumously under the care of G. Gatti (v.) in the last issue of the Bull. d'arch. crist. (1894, pp. 151-73). He insisted in a special way on the usefulness of the geographical method. In 1855 in the Spicilegium Solesmense (III, Paris 1855, pp. 544-77), he dealt with "de christianis monumentis 1280v exhibentibus" and in the fourth volume of the same Spicilegium he wrote "de christianis titulis Carthaginensibus" (Paris 1858, pp. 505-38). In 1861 the first volume of his Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores appeared: the work opens with the history of epigraphic studies from the Middle Ages to his own day. There follows a treatise on the chronological notes, the laws and formulas of consular dates, the fasti of the consuls, the various solar and lunar cycles.

Of the second volume of his Inscriptiones Christianae De Rossi published the first part in 1888; in the proem the history of metric and rhythmic Christian epigraphy is traced for the first time, and it includes the edition of the ancient epigraphic sylloges up to the Carolingian anthologies. To Fr. Marchi and to De Rossi Pope Pius IX entrusted the task of arranging the Pontifical Lateran Museum; the former gathered there the most conspicuous Christian sarcophagi scattered in various places of the city, and De Rossi classified in admirable fashion the ancient Christian inscriptions, dividing them into two principal classes, the sacred and the sepulchral. De Rossi set out in the Triplice omaggio a Pio IX and in a special article of his Bull. d'arch. crist. (1877) the criterion he followed in the classification.

The work carried out by De Rossi as a writer of the Vatican Library is attested by the five volumes of description and classification of codices, and by the arrangement of the index cards of Gaetano Marini and Cardinal Angelo Mai. His treatise De origine, historia, indicibus scrisii et bibliothecae Sedis Apostolicae is prefaced to the first volume of the catalogue of the Palatine codices (1886).

In the jubilee homage of the Vatican Library to His Holiness Leo XIII (1888) he illustrated La Bibbia offerta da Ceolfrido Abbate al sepolcro di S. Pietro, a most ancient codex among those surviving from the libraries of the Apostolic See. To this kind of study belong also his writings on the Bibbia pauperum and its most ancient origins (Bull. arch. crist. 1887, pp. 56-59) and on the Bibbia pauperum del Liceo di Costanza (ibid.). De Rossi also occupied himself with the Middle Ages, with studies on Stefano Porcari, on the statutes of Anticoli, and on the collection of Roman inscriptions relating to artists and their works in the Middle Ages, compiled at the end of the 16th century (Bull. di arch. crist., 3rd series, 1 [1890], pp. 79-100). Another work of De Rossi is that on the Musicai cristiani e saggi di pavimenti delle chiese di Roma anteriori al sec. XV (Rome 1872-96, completed by E. Stevenson), with a dual text in Italian and French. In collaboration with L. Duchesne he published the Martyrologium Hieronymianum ad fidem codicum, adiectis prolegemnis aegli Acta SS. Novembris, II, 1, Brussels 1894. G. B. De Rossi also collaborated with the most esteemed Italian and foreign periodicals. A list of all his writings was compiled by G. Gatti in the Album offered to him in 1892 and updated in the last issue of the Bull. d'arch. crist. of 1894. His considerable card index occupies 31 volumes (codd. Vat. lat. 10512-43, described by M. Vattasso and E. Carusi, Rome 1920). From 1884 G. B. De Rossi was president of the Society of Students of Christian Archaeology; president of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology, secretary of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, "magister" of the "Collegium cultorum martyrum", prefect of the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library.

A man of most upright life, of profound piety, averse to politics, he was most dear to the pontiffs Pius IX and Leo XIII, who called him "Urbis decor". Scholars and scientific institutes of every nation honored him, especially on the occasions of the 60th and 70th years of his life. Pope Pius XI solemnly commemorated the centenary of his birth. His highest desire: "Io vagheggio un orbe cristiano illustrato con i monumenti dei primi sei o sette secoli" (Roma sotterranea, I, p. 82), was confided by Pope Pius XI as the ideal goal of his Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology.

Enrico Josi