GSELL, STÉPHANE. - Historian and archaeologist, b. in Paris on 7 February 1864, d. there on 1 January 1932. He was a pupil of the French School of Rome from 1886 to 1890. During this period (1889) he directed, with excellent method, the excavations carried out at Vulci by the owner Prince Giulio Torlonia and published them in the collection of the Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, Fouilles dans la nécropole de Vulci (Paris 1891).
Shortly afterwards, two of his valuable theses for the doctorate in letters appeared: Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Domitien (ibid. 1893); and De Tipasa Mauretaniae Caesariensis urbe; this Latin dissertation, however, was immediately reworked by G. into his study Tipasa, ville de la Maurétanie césarienne (in Mélanges d'archéol. et d'hist., 14 [1894], pp. 291-450); there, availing himself of the exact topographical indications contained in the Passio of the martyr Salsa, then studied by Duchesne, he illustrated the basilica of that same Saint, which he had identified. Tipasa is also treated in the Recherches archéologiques en Algérie (Paris 1893) and in the Promenades archéologiques aux environs d'Alger (ibid. 1926).
His appointment as a lecturer at the Ecole supérieure des lettres d'Alger determined his devotion to Africa. The breadth and precision of his notes on the Christian monuments that were then coming to light in Algeria, and which he immediately studied, constitute a model of clarity and precision rarely attained. Such are his Notes d'archéologie algérienne in the Bulletin du Comité, of 1899; the Chronique archéologique africaine of 1891; L'exploration archéologique dans le département de Constantine, in collaboration with H. Graillot, in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 13 (1893), pp. 461-541 and 14 (1894), pp. 17-86, 501-609, where his Chroniques africaines also appeared: 15 (1895), pp. 301-50; 16 (1896), pp. 441-90; 18 (1898), pp. 69-140; 19 (1899), pp. 35-83.
The two memoirs on the Edifices chrétiens de Thélepte and on the Edifices chrétiens d'Ammaedara (Haidra) appeared in the Atti del II Congresso internazionale di archeologia cristiana of 1900 (Rome 1902, pp. 127-259); they were republished, as a tribute to his memory, with notes by A. Saumagne in the Revue tunisienne, 1932, pp. 5-56, 277-300, and separately at Tunis in 1933. Of capital importance, in his Monuments antiques de l'Algérie (2 vols., Paris 1901), is the treatise included in vol. II, dedicated to the buildings of Christian worship (pp. 114-343), and anyone who produced an updating of it, or better a continuation, would be most highly deserving.
The Atlas archéologique de l'Algérie (Paris-Algiers 1902-1911) illustrates 10,000 names, in a two-column text of 510 folio pages. The exactness of the information, in its sobriety, shows with what scrupulousness G. had assiduously traversed the whole territory of Algeria, not neglecting the smallest monumental remains. He also published the illustration of the Musée de Philippeville (Paris-Algiers 1898) and that of the Musée de Tebessa (ibid. 1902). In 1916 his Textes relatifs à l'histoire de l'Afrique, I, Hérodote (ibid. 1916) appeared. Meanwhile, according to the plan already envisaged since the time of the illustration of Tipasa, he prepared and published the Inscriptions latines de l'Algérie, I (Paris 1922). Noteworthy and summarizing is his study on Le christianisme en Oranie avant la conquête arabe, published in the Bulletin du cinquantenaire de la Société de géographie et d'archéologie de la province d'Oran, 1928, pp. 17-32. Also valuable is his treatment of La Tripolitaine et le Sahara au IIIe siècle, in Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, Paris 1926. But G.'s truly monumental work is his Histoire ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord (8 vols., Paris 1913-28), which, because of his death, remained interrupted at the end of the Roman Republic.
Bibliography4 works
Enrico Josi