GATTI, GIUSEPPE. — Born in Rome on 23 November 1838, died in Oriolo Romano on 12 September 1914; an archaeologist highly skilled in classical and Christian epigraphy, the topography of Rome, and Roman law. He obtained his degree ad praesium in jurisprudence. He had friendly relations with G. Heuzen and T. Mommsen and collaborated on vol. VI of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, but above all he was a friend of G. B. De Rossi, of whom for more than thirty years he was the principal collaborator and was entrusted with continuing the work of the Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae septima saecula antiquiores. Only after his death, however, did a supplementary fascicle appear, extending to the year 395, because G. was occupied with teaching Roman law at the Historical-Juridical Academy and with his duties as director of the Museo nazionale romano and of the excavations in Rome, and later as superintendent of excavations and discoveries of antiquities in Rome and the province.
He was also director of the Bullettino della commissione archeologica comunale, in which, in addition to numerous articles, he began in 1887, together with G. B. De Rossi, a Miscellanea di notizie bibliografiche e critiche per la topografia e la storia dei monumenti di Roma. He was a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei, a member of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, and, from 1900 until his death, president of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology.
Among his writings are: Della utilità che lo studio del diritto romano può trarre dall'epigrafia (in Studi e documenti di storia e diritto, 1885, pp. 3–25); La badia di Ferentillo (in Rassegna italiana, 1885, pp. 337–48); Il tradimento di Giuda negli antichi monumenti cristiani (in Bullettino della Commissione archeol. comunale di Roma, 3rd series, 15 [1887], pp. 205–14); L'epitafio di « Ioannes
exigua » vescovo di ignoto sede nel secolo sesto (ibid., 16 [1888], pp. 79–82); Di un nuovo monumento epigrafico relativo alla basilica di S. Clemente (ibid., 17 [1889], pp. 467–74); Iscrizione salomiana (in Römische Quartalschrift, 6 [1892], pp. 261–74); Di un frammento marmoreo col nome del martire Genesio (in Bull. arch. rom., 5th series, 32 [1904], pp. 325–30); Capselle reliquarie cristiane e misure romane di capacità (ibid., 33 [1905], pp. 316–28). Particularly noteworthy is the work Gli statuti dei mercanti di Roma dal sec. XIII al XVI (Rome 1885).