PACELLI, GIUSEPPE. - Priest, b. at Manduria (Taranto) on 31 Dec. 1763, to Pietro and Francesca Paola Viglietta, of a branch of the P. or De Pacelli family; d. at Lecce on 2 Dec. 1811.
In 1787 he was ordained priest; he specialized in geography, teaching for many years in various colleges and seminaries, while at the same time devoting himself to historical and geographical studies. In 1795 he published his first work: Elementi di geografia per uso del Seminario di Otranto (2 vols., Naples), which earned him appointment as a member of the Accademia dei Sinceri dell'Arcadia di Napoli, under the Arcadian name of Nicomero Euripio. He subsequently composed: L'Atlante
unity of Italy with that of the Holy See. The difficulty was overcome by accepting the viewpoint of the latter, and already on 24 Nov. 1926 P. delivered to the Barone an outline of the Treaty (the text of which was to be in Latin). The designation of the new territory, which was to include, besides the Vatican, the Villa Doria-Pamphili, was discussed; the first proposal was that of “State of the Holy See”
of Salento, in 2 vols., of high value but still unpublished, together with other works of great interest for the historical and geographical knowledge of the Salento region. As a historian, P. was a scholar of local history who knew how to add elements of sound criticism to the traditionalist approach.