MARCHI, GIUSEPPE. — Archaeologist and Jesuit, born in Tolmezzo (Udine) on 22 February 1795, died in Rome on 22 February 1860.
He entered the Society of Jesus on 12 November 1815 and taught the humanities in the colleges of Terni, Reggio Emilia, and Modena, and at the Collegio Romano (1825, and from 1833 onward). There he had the opportunity to pursue a varied and intense activity, also as director of the Library (1833–38) and of the Kircherian Museum (1839–60).
In Rome he was able to devote himself readily to profane and sacred archaeology; and the problem of the origins of the arts of central Italy led him to deepen his study of the most ancient numismatics. The uso grave of the Kircherian Museum (Rome 1839) was precisely an initial arduous essay in the topographical and chronological classification of these coins, to which he returned in order to illustrate those found at Vicarello (La stipe tributata alle divinità delle Acque Apollinari, there 1852). In 1842–43 he played important parts in the publication of the Etruscan Gregorian Museum, especially through the emendations he introduced, by direct papal commission, into the second edition. The Cista atletica (known as Ficoroni) of the Kircherian Museum (Rome 1848) is likewise connected with questions concerning the primitive origin of the Italian arts. But already by 1838 his competence in the Christian antiquities of Rome was well known; in 1849 he began systematic surveys of the ancient hypogea in the suburban area. Entrusted by Gregory XVI in 1842 with the new office of custodian of the sacred cemeteries, he was gradually able to «rescue the Roman catacombs from oblivion and squalor», prevent the destruction of their monuments and other serious abuses, disclose their successive discoveries to scholars of every nation, and fervently promote their rigorous analytical and comparative study. Gregory XVI took pleasure in visiting, in the cemetery then called that of S. Agnese (October 1844), the explorations directed by M., who thus began «a new era of studies concerning Christian antiquities... awakening the attention of all Europe» (De Rossi); he also prepared and traced the way for the Commission of Sacred Archaeology, in which, as long as he lived, he retained the direction of the excavations together with the office of custodian. Of the great work announced in 1840, Monumenti delle primitive arti cristiane nella metropoli del cristianesimo, he published only the first part, Architettura cimiteriale (pp. 5–272), with 48 plates, and another 20 plates on «architettura basilicale»
(1844–47): in the final fascicle (pp. 237–72) is the report on the discovery of the intact tomb of the martyr s. Giacinto (1845). Other parts were subsequently suspended as a result of the upheavals of 1848–49, which the Lyonese architect L. Perret took advantage of to publish a purportedly original artistic illustration of the catacombs. For his part, M. ceded to Fr. Raffaele Garrucci the abundant iconographic material already collected, including the publication of the paintings of the tombs of Vincenzo and Vibia, previously published as Christian by Bottari, which M. had sought out and rediscovered (1847). He obtained from Pius IX permission, beginning in 1850, to have copies made of many cemetery paintings; and he arranged them, together with the ancient Christian sculptures, in the new Lateran Christian Museum, founded in 1854. His greatest merit was having committed the young G. B. De Rossi to Christian archaeology, reserving for him from 1842 the collection of inscriptions, and subsequently, through his constant efforts, making him his most able disciple, collaborator, and successor. In Latin epigraphy M. was deservedly regarded as a rival of Morcelli; and a great many inscriptions composed by him commemorated important works and private and public events of the pontificates of Gregory XVI and Pius IX. His religious and priestly virtues were no less outstanding than his gifts of intelligence, erudition, and industry.