NIBBY, ANTONIO. – Archaeologist and topographer, b. in Rome on 14 October 1792, d. there on 29 December 1839. While still very young, he founded among his fellow students a small Academy which he named Hellenic, with the aim of promoting the study of Greek and Latin literature; from it there separated in 1814 the Tiberina Academy, which enjoyed a long and glorious existence. In 1812 N. was appointed a writer for the Greek language at the Vatican Library. In 1820 he was given the chair of archaeology at the Roman Archiginnasio, which he also taught at the French Academy.
As early as 1817 he published a translation of Pausanias, accompanied by a highly praised essay of critical, geographical, and antiquarian observations, issued by the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology; he subsequently annotated and glossed the new edition of Nardini’s Roma antica, with particular attention to the ancient consular roads. These were followed by: Viaggio antiquario nei dintorni di Roma (1819); Viaggio antiquario alla villa di Orazio, a Subiaco, a Trevi e presso la sorgente dell'Aniene (1826); Viaggio antiquario ad Ostia (1829); Analisi storico-topografico-antiquaria della carta dei dintorni di Roma (3 vols., 1837; 2nd posthumous ed. 1848–49); Roma nell'anno 1838 (4 vols., 1838–41). He also wrote a long series of essays, most of them in Dissertazioni dell'Accademia romana di archeologia, among which should be mentioned those on the Temple of Peace and the Basilica of Constantine, the Roman Forum, the Via Sacra, the Flavian Amphitheatre, the statue of the Dying Gladiator, Hadrian’s Villa, etc.
N.’s particular merit lay in having given direction to studies of the topography of ancient Rome, its roads, and the monuments of the Roman countryside.