FABRETTI, RAFFAELE. - Archaeologist, b. at Urbino in 1618, d. at Rome on 7 Jan. 1700, canon of St. Lawrence in Damaso and then of St. Peter's in the Vatican. Although he had various assignments from the Holy See, such as dealing with diplomatic questions with Spain and then with Urbino, as well as composing apostolic briefs, he always found a way to devote himself to his favorite studies and to collect and copy ancient epigraphs, of which he made a notable collection in his father's house, spurred on above all by the example of his friend Lucio Giovanni of Traù, who had already assembled a considerable number of ancient inscriptions from Dalmatia.
For F., appointed "Custodian of the relics and the cemeteries," it was not difficult to procure cemetery epigraphs, since from Card. Carpegna he had permission to take from the catacombs all the inscriptions he wished; others were then ceded to him by Prince Giustiniani of Bassano and by the dukes Cesarino Sforza and Alessandro Mattei. To illustrate this collection of his, F. published at Rome in 1699: Inscriptionum antiquorum quae in aedibus peternis asservantur explicatio et additimentum; it had a second edition in 1702. Of the ten chapters of which it is composed, the whole of the eighth and part of the tenth contain Christian epigraphs: many of these were copied in the cemetery discovered in 1687 at the first mile on the Via Latina, which F. believed to be that of Tertullinus. Of this cemetery, F. also published a small plan.
His other publications are: De aquis et aqueductis veteris Romae dissertationes tres (Rome 1826) and those, in-fol., on the column of Trajan, the "tabula iliaca" and the Claudian emissary of Lake Fucino: De columna Traiana syntagma: accesserunt explicatio veteris tabellae anaglyphae Homeri Iliadem atque ex Strychcero, Arctino et Lasche Illi excidium continentis et emissarii lacus Fucini descriptio (ibid. 1863). Also worthy of note is the Dissertazione in cui si emendano alcuni errori seguiti nella descrizione del Lazio antico fatta da p. d'innario Kircher, which was included in the third volume of the Dissertazioni dell'Accademia Etrusca di Cortona.
Bibliography5 works
Giuseppe Bovini