Nicolai, Nicola Maria

NICOLAI, NICOLA MARIA. - Archaeologist and historian of the Roman countryside, b. in Rome on 14 Sept. 1756, d. there on 18 Jan. 1833. He began his career in the legal profession; then he rose through the highest ranks of the prelature; votante of the Segnatura di Grazia and Uditore generale of the Camera Apostolica.

He was president of the Accademia dei Lincei and, succeeding Canova, of the Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia, in whose Atti (1st series, vols. I-V) he published various historical monographs on the places once inhabited in the Roman countryside, because his activity was carried on particularly in financial administrations and around the agrarian and annonary conditions both of Rome and of the Roman campagna. His studies on this subject are still today a basis for knowledge of the literature on this same subject, so much so that N. is judged the prince of writers on the Roman countryside. As an archaeologist N. wrote: Della basilica di S. Paolo (Rome 1815), important for its detailed description of the ancient Basilica, not yet destroyed by fire; De Vaticana Basilica divi Petri ac de eiusdem privilegiis libri quattuor cum appendice (ibid. 1817). Of all the numerous writings of N. of an economic and agrarian character the most important are the 3 vols. of the Memorie, leggi ed osservazioni sulla campagna e sull'annona di Roma, ibid. 1820-25; vol. IV, unpublished, was published by Canaletti Gaudenti in 1947.

Carlo Carletti