PIAGGIO, ANTONIO. - A Scolopian, born in Genoa on 8 February 1713, died in Naples in 1797 or 1798. Remarkable for his teaching skill and patience in mechanical work and for his extensive knowledge of the chemical sciences, he was first employed in the Vatican Library, where he transcribed old parchments and performed other calligraphic tasks at which he was highly proficient.
Summoned by Charles III, King of Naples, he went there to apply his rare skill to the papyri then being discovered in the excavations at Herculaneum. In 1753 he invented a machine for unrolling them, a device described and praised by Winckelmann, Bartelle, and others, with which he succeeded—though with great difficulty—in unrolling more than 300 papyri. This machine is preserved in the Papyrus Workshop of the National Museum in Naples, where his letters and scientific memoirs are also kept. While serving as an English minister in Naples, he had a pamphlet by P. on Vesuvian phenomena published in London.