FERRARI, PAOLO AGOSTINO. - A Genoese Benedictine of the seventeenth century. He took vows in 1649 in the monastery of S. Girolamo di Cervara near Genova; some years later he went to Montecassino, where he devoted himself lovingly to study.
Making extensive use, as he himself states, of the work of his confrere Angelo della Noce, he prepared a critical edition of the Rule of St. Benedict: Sanctissimi Patriarchae Benedicti Regula ex vetustissimis membranis s. Monasterii Casineni (Napoli 1659). The work is furnished with numerous historical notes that still make it useful today. Two further editions were published by the press of the Abbey of Montecassino in 1872 and 1888.
BIBL.: M. Armellini, Biblioteca Benedictino-Casineni, II, Assisi, p. 119; M. Zieglobatov, Historia rei litterariae O. S. B., III, Augusta 1754, p. 11; G. Morin, Revolve S. Benedicti tradicio codicum mit. Casinenium, Montecassino 1900, pp. x-21; A. Albareda, Bibliografia de la Regla Benedictina, Monestero 1933, pp. 87, 411, 542, 560. Ambrogio Mancena