PIAZZA, GIUSEPPE. - Priest, among the finest of nineteenth-century Rome, b. at Velletri on 18 March 1815, d. at Rome on 23 Apr. 1893. Ordained in 1837, in 1839 parish priest of S. Maria in Trivio at Velletri, secretary to Card. Ludovico Micara, in 1847 vicar general of Subiaco and then, for a short time, professor, spiritual director, rector of the Vatican Seminary, subsequently rector of the Seminary of Sutri.
Lastly, he was a beneficiary of S. Maria Maggiore and minute-writer of the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide for affairs of the Eastern rite, where he worked for thirty years: numerous manuscripts attest to his activity and his uncommon competence in Eastern liturgy and law. From 1875 until his death he was spiritual director of the Roman Seminary; thirsting for God, he created around himself an atmosphere of fervour that profoundly affected the ecclesiastical life of the Rome of Leone XIII.
He compiled a manual of Meditations for clerics (2 vols., Rome 1898; 2nd ed., 4 vols., ibid. 1938), widely circulated in the seminaries of Italy.