MORCELLI, STEFANO ANTONIO. — Archaeologist and epigraphist, born at Chiari (Brescia) on 17 January 1737, died there on 1 January 1822. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1753 and taught literary subjects in the Colleges of Arezzo, Ragusa, and Fermo, and at the Collegio Romano, where he founded an academy of archaeology in the Kircherian Museum. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773), he became librarian to Cardinal Albani and, in 1791, provost of Chiari, having refused the bishopric of Ragusa. When the Society was restored (1814), he was readmitted, while, with the permission of Pius VII, remaining in his position at Chiari.
He acquired great fame as an epigraphist through his broad classical culture and his clear Latin style, even when treating modern subjects, with a series of important works: De stylo inscriptionum latinarum (Rome 1781), which made him the founder of the science of epigraphy; it was supplemented by: Inscriptiones commentariis subiectae (ibid. 1783), whose most notable feature is the attempt to draw up the fasti of the various Christian centuries, written in the manner of the Capitoline fasti (published separately as Fasti christiani, Turin 1868). To these works, in the 2nd enlarged edition in 4 vols. (Padua 1818–23, edited by F. Caldani, G. Furlanetto, F. Federici), he added a fifth volume, published before the others: Πάρεργον inscriptionum novissimarum (ibid. 1818). Two specialized lexicons should also be added: P. Schiano, Lexicon epigraphicum morcellianum (3 vols., Bologna 1835–38); A. Gambarini, Lexicon epigraphicum morcellianum vocibus italicus digestum (ibid. 1843).
He also wrote: Μηνολόγιον τῶν εὐαγγελίων ἑορταστικόν, sive Kalendarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (2 vols., Rome 1788); Africa christiana (3 vols., Brescia 1816–17); Opuscoli ascetici (3 vols., Brescia 1819; 2nd ed. 1823).