HOLSTE (HOLSTENIO), LUKAS. - Geographer and scholar, b. at Amburgo on 27 Sept. 1596, d. at Roma on 2 Feb. 1661. He studied at Leida under Giovanni Meursio; he was in Danimarca and Inghilterra; at Parigi he converted to Catholicism on 15 Dec. 1624. In 1627 he moved to Roma, having been summoned there by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, whose librarian he became in 1636. In 1641 he was appointed custodian of the Biblioteca Vaticana. He left his private collection of printed books to the Biblioteca Angelica of Roma, and his manuscripts to other institutions.
His various duties and boundless learning did not allow H. to carry out any of the grand undertakings he had planned, foremost among them a collection of Geographi graeci minores. Published posthumously were his Annotationes all'Italia antiqua by Filippo Cluverio (Roma 1666), as well as various patristic editions. He began the studies for the remaking of the forty geographical paintings in the Galleria Vaticana. Notebooks of notes remain from his many surveys in central and southern Italia.