PIAGGIO, ANTONIO. - Piarist, b. in Genova on 8 Feb. 1713, d. in Napoli in 1797 or 1798. Of admirable ingenuity and patience in mechanical work, and possessed of extensive knowledge of the chemical sciences, he was first employed in the Biblioteca Vaticana, where he transcribed old parchments and carried out other calligraphic tasks in which he was highly skilled.
At the request of Carlo III, king of Napoli, he went there to exercise his rare skill upon the papyri then discovered in the excavations at Ercolano. He succeeded in inventing (1753) a machine for unrolling them, a machine described and praised by Winckelmann, Bartelle, and others, by means of which he achieved, albeit with great difficulty, the unrolling of more than 300 papyri. This machine is preserved in the Officina dei papiri of the Museo nazionale di Napoli, where his letters and scientific memoirs are likewise kept. Hamilton, the English minister in Napoli, had a booklet by him on Vesuvian phenomena published in London.