FABRETTI, Raffaele. — Archaeologist, b. at Urbino in 1618, d. at Rome on 7 Jan. 1700, canon of S. Lorenzo in Damaso and later of S. Peter’s in the Vatican. Although he had received various commissions from the Holy See, such as negotiating diplomatic matters with Spain and later with Urbino, as well as drafting apostolic briefs, he always found time to pursue his favourite studies and to collect and copy ancient inscriptions, assembling a notable collection in his father’s house, encouraged especially by the example of his friend Lucio Giovanni of Traù, who had already gathered a substantial number of ancient inscriptions from Dalmatia.
As “Custodian of the Religion and of the Cemeteries,” Fabretti had little difficulty in procuring funerary inscriptions, since Cardinal Carpegna granted him permission to take from the catacombs any inscriptions he wished; others were ceded to him by Prince Giustiniano of Bassano and by the Dukes Cesarino Sforza and Alessandro Mattei. To illustrate this collection, Fabretti published in Rome in 1699: *Inscriptionum antiquarum quae in usibus paternus asservantur explicatio et additamentum*; a second edition appeared in 1702. Of the ten chapters into which it is divided, the whole of the eighth and part of the tenth contain Christian inscriptions; many of these were copied from the cemetery discovered in 1687 at the first milestone on the Via Latina, which Fabretti believed to be that of Tertullinus. He also published a small plan of this cemetery.
Other publications by him include: *De aquis et aquaeductis veteris Romae dissertationes tres* (Rome 1840) and the folio work on Trajan’s Column, the “Tabula Iliaca,” and the Claudian emissary of Lake Fucino: *De columna Traiana syntagma: accesserunt explicatio veteris tabellae anaglyphae Homeri Iliadem atque ex Stesichoro, Articulo et Lesche Ilii excidium continentis et emissarii lacus Fucini descriptio* (ibid. 1863). Also noteworthy is the *Dissertazione* in which he corrected certain errors in the description of ancient Latium made by P. Athanasius Kircher, which was included in vol. III of the *Dissertazioni* of the Etruscan Academy of Cortona.