FEDELE. – Ancient Christians called the faithful (in Greek: παντός) one who had received the sacrament of Baptism and had obtained the grace of Faith: *Fidem accepit* or *percepit*.
Historical-philological school. A reliable editor of the most important ecclesiastical cartularies of Rome (those of SS. Cosma e Damiano, S. Maria Nova, and S. Prassede), his contributions shed vivid light on medieval Rome: his fundamental research on the papacy and the civic institutions of the 10th and 11th centuries, as well as his celebrated courses on the formation of patrimonies, on Arnaldo da Brescia, on Boniface VIII, and on Cola di Rienzo. He also reassessed historical studies on medieval southern Italy, recognizing its profound unity with Campania, Lazio, and Rome. A deputy on the national list, he served as Minister of Public Education from 1925 to 1928 (and in that capacity, in harmony with his Catholic sentiments, worked actively toward the Lateran Concord, among whose immediate antecedents was the meeting in Assisi between F. and Cardinal Henry of Segrave). His name became associated with institutions and measures such as the resumption of excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, the recovery of the ships of Nemi, the national edition of Latin and Greek ecclesiastical texts, and the founding of the Accademia d’Italia. As president of the Italian Historical Institute (from 1935 for medieval studies) and of the Roman Deputazione di Storia Patria, as well as of the Poligrafico dello Stato, he promoted monumental collections such as the *Fonti per la storia d’Italia*, the *Regesta chartarum Italicarum*, and the reprinting of Muratori’s *Rerum Italicarum Scriptores*.
A man of charitable works, he founded institutions of welfare in Minturno and the Pontine region, which, through his historical work, perpetuate his memory among posterity.