GROSSI-GONDI, FELICE. - Jesuit, scholar and archaeologist, b. in Rome on 16 Sept. 1860, d. there on 31 March 1923. He entered the Society of Jesus on 13 Sept. 1881, and after completing his theological studies he obtained a degree in letters at the University of Rome. He taught Italian and classical literature at the Istituto Massimo in Rome and at the Collegio di Mondragone (Frascati); then, from 1914, Christian archaeology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
He had already devoted himself to classical antiquities especially with a complete historical-epigraphic study (his degree thesis) on the Comites in the Roman era (from the end of the Republic to the middle of the 6th century): their progressive development during the Empire marks the gradual transformation of the entire civil and military order, but Mommsen himself had treated it only in part; E. De Ruggiero included G.-G.'s study in his Dizion. epigraf. d'antich. romane. He had also investigated the ancient topography and monuments of the Tusculan and suburban territory, which he illustrated in part in the Bullettino d. Commiss. archeol. comun. di Roma (1898-1916), in part in the Civ. Catt. (published separately: La villeggiat. tuscol. di M. T. Civ., Rome 1905), and completed in 2 vols.: La villa dei Quintili e la villa di Mondragone (ibid. 1901) and Il Tuscolano nell'età classica (ibid. 1908). He set out subsidiary questions for the history of art in the manual Sulle soglie dell'arte (Rome 1912; 2nd ed., posthumous, Turin 1925). On Christian archaeology he wrote articles on topics then of current interest and others in Civ. Catt., Röm. quartalschrift, N. bull. di arch. crist., Atti d. Pont. accad. r. di arch. and elsewhere: some republished in pamphlets with extensive additions. The principal ones are: Leggenda e storia di Costantino nell'arte; La battaglia ad Saxa Rubra; L'arco di Costantino (2nd ed., Rome 1913); Scoperte a S. Sebastiano sull'Appia; Tomba, spoglie, altare di S. Sebastiano; Il «Refrigerium» ad Catacumbas. Origine della basilica e del monastero (ibid. 1915-19); Catacombe tuscolane; Iscrizione agiografica in S. Prassede; S. Fabiano papa e martire: tomba e spoglie (2nd ed., ibid. 1916); La Dormitio B. Mariae V.; Scoperte archeol. del I e II ventennio del sec. XX; Chiese di Roma dopo il 1870; Stef. Ant. Marcelli e la sua Africa cristiana (Chiari 1921); S. Callisto papa e martire; Iscrizione eucaristica in S. Lorenzo (1922), etc.
A synthesis of the whole of Christian archaeology, according to the results of the best archaeologists of the "Roman school," especially Bosio, Marchi, De Rossi, Garrucci, Wilpert, he gave in the manual I monumenti cristiani dei primi sei secoli (Rome, 2 vols.: I, I monumenti iconografici e architettonici [1923]; II, Trattato di epigrafia cristiana latina e grece del mondo romano occidentale [1920]); already preceded by the vol.: Principi e problemi di critica agiografica. Atti e spoglie dei Martiri (ibid. 1919). And meanwhile he was preparing other works.
He was a member of the Accademia di religione cattolica dell'Arcadia, of the Società di cultori di archeologia cristiana, of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology and of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology.
Bibliography
Romano Fausti