MALVESTITI, MAURIZIO. - Franciscan, born at Verolanuova (Brescia) on 17 Feb. 1778, died at Brescia on 25 March 1865. Having entered the Franciscan Order in 1794, at the Napoleonic suppression of 1797 he went to Ferrara, where he was ordained priest in 1800. A lector at the convent of Aracoeli from 1801, between 1806 and 1807 he became acquainted with Prince Luciano Bonaparte, who obtained from Pius VII the appointment of M. as tutor to his children.
He took part in the turbulent events of Luciano's life, following him to England in 1810 and thereafter until his death in 1840. On the excavations at Luciano's villa at Canino (Viterbo), begun in 1826, M. wrote 4 vols., Museum étrusque de Lucien Bonaparte, Viterbo 1826–29. In 1837, having become general chronicler of the Order, he worked on the preparation of a new volume of the Chronologia historico-legalis, which he did not complete. In 1847 he was elected provincial minister of Lombardo-Veneto and, in 1849, negotiated the surrender of Brescia at the end of the Ten Days. In 1850 Pius IX appointed him general definitor. In 1853 he was made Commissioner of the Holy Land for Lombardo-Veneto, and in 1856 he was charged with bringing to Napoleon III the embassy of the Custody of the Holy Land in order to obtain the protection of France; on that occasion he founded the Paris Commissariat. A man of great learning, he also devoted himself to the natural sciences and to music, carrying out studies especially on Hebrew music.