SCANAROLI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - An ecclesiastic distinguished for works of charity, born in Modena in 1579, died in Rome on 10 Sept. 1664. He attended the schools of the Jesuits and in 1598 entered the novitiate of S. Andrea a Monte Cavallo in Rome; but, at the urging of his relatives, he left it and went on to attend the University of Macerata, where he took a doctorate in jurisprudence (1604).
He was then in Rome an advocate for prisoners for about 40 years, protector of the Archconfraternity of Charity, Roman citizen (1613), general superintendent of the properties of the Barberini family, priest (1622), bishop of Sidon and Tyre (1630), and vicar of Card. Barberini for the basilica of S. Pietro. His especial concern, however, was always for abandoned poor people, widows, unmarried women, and prisoners, whom he aided and defended by his ingenuity and labor, and assisted with thousands of scudi. In the last years of his life he withdrew once more to the aforementioned Jesuit novitiate, where he died, leaving as an eminent monument to his learning and remarkable activity the work De visitatione carceratorum libri tres (Rome 1655 and 1675). A copy of this rare work (Rome ed. 1675) is preserved in the National Library of Modena.