MAFFEI, GIAMPIETRO. - Jesuit, humanist, and historian, born in Bergamo in 1535, died in Tivoli (Rome) on 21 Oct. 1603.
Having already been professor of eloquence in Genoa and secretary of the Republic (1563-64), he entered the Jesuits in 1565 and by 1567-68 was already teaching eloquence at the Collegio Romano. His exquisite Latin translation of Fr. E. Accosta’s *Rerum a Societate Jesu in India gestarum* (Dilienga 1571), with an appendix of missionary letters, earned him an invitation to Lisbon from Cardinal Enrico of Portugal, where he used the rich material assembled there to describe the Portuguese conquest and the evangelization of India. Indeed, he prepared there (1572-81) the work: *Historiarum Indicarum libri XVI* (Florence 1588; classical Italian version by F. Serdonati, 2 vols., Florence-Venice 1589). Meanwhile he had published: *De vita et miraculis s. Ignatii* (Rome 1585) and was preparing *Le vite di XVII santi confessori* (ibid. 1609). Charged with composing the life of Gregory XIII, he gathered extensive information and documentary material (preserved in the Archivio Boncompagni and described by Pastor, IX, pp. 816-922), and delivered the finished work to the censors in 1597. It was, however, not printed but instead reworked, with many changes and alterations, by Paolo Teggia, secretary to the Boncompagni household. This condemned recension never saw the light of day; and Maffei’s original, of which Barberini codices judged more authentic and free from tampering survive, finally appeared through the care of C. Coquelines: *Annali di Gregorio XIII* (2 vols., Rome 1742). He was also entrusted with writing the life of Clement XIII and collected much material (preserved in the Borghese fonds of the Vatican Archives [III, 129 B]); but he composed only the first three books, posthumously issued under a title not his own: *Historiarum ab excessu Gregori XIII libri tres, Sixti V pontificatum complexi* (Bergamo 1746), which led to the belief that he had been charged with writing the lives of Gregory XIII’s successors, whereas the work actually describes the missions carried out by the Aldobrandini before the pontificate. These last two works still retain, even after later research and studies, the value of primary and indispensable sources.