Galante, Gennaro Aspreno

GALANTE, GENNARO ASPRENO. - Priest, historian and archaeologist, b. in Naples on 6 Oct. 1842, d. there on 11 June 1923. As a young man he showed himself passionate about archaeological studies, and at the same time he drew great profit from theological ones. Ordained a priest in Rome in 1866, he met G. B. De Rossi, who held him in great favor. Having returned to Naples, he continued the series of his contributions.

In 1867, in fact, he wrote about the sepulchral slab of the archdeacon Theophylact and the paintings of the catacomb of St. Severus; in 1872 he published the Guida sacra della città di Napoli. He cherished the plan of an underground Naples, but he was unable to carry it out. In 1882, in a grotto near Calvi, he found some paintings representing St. Castrensis and St. Priscus. He reported to Rome, in the Society of Students of Christian Archaeology, on the discovery of the images of the first Neapolitan bishops, arranged in an underground small basilica of the cemetery of St. Januarius in Naples, analogous to the series placed in the ancient Cathedral called the "Stefania"; he identified the epitaph of the Neapolitan bishop Maximus from the time of Liberius (352-66); he made notable discoveries in the atrium of the catacomb of St. Januarius (1889), where he also brought to light a baptistery (1899). He treated the question of the maior and minor basilicas of St. Januarius. He also studied the other catacombs of St. Gaudiosus, of St. Ephebus, of St. Severus, of Sts. Fortunatus and Maximus at the Lammatari, besides lesser hypogea. He illustrated the cemetery of St. Hypolistus, martyr in Aripalda, the cenobium of St. Severinus in the Castrum Luccolanum of Naples, the mosaics of the baptistery of the cathedral of Naples, etc. He compiled a great number of studies of sacred archaeology, ecclesiastical history, classical and Judaic archaeology (149 items ranging from 1862 to 1923). Much also remains in his manuscripts, preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library; he donated 4000 vols. of his library to the academy of St. Peter in Chains of the Archiepiscopal Lyceum.

Carlo Cecchelli