SEROUX D'AGINCOURT, JEAN-BAPTISTE-LOUIS-GEORGES. – French archaeologist and numismatist, born in Beauvais (France) on 5 April 1730, died in Rome on 24 September 1814 and buried in S. Luigi de' Francesi.
In 1778 he left for England, Holland, and Germany; the following year he visited Italy and settled in Rome, where he prepared his great work Histoire de l'art par les monuments depuis sa décadence au IVe siècle jusqu'à son renouvellement au XVIe, 6 vols., Paris 1810–23, with 325 plates; the work was translated into Italian by St. Picozzi (Prato 1829) and again published in Mantua in 1841. Some analytical plates were prepared by Genée. In this work S. d'A. published several previously unpublished paintings; unfortunately, following the bad practice initiated by M. A. Boldetti, he contributed to damaging the cemetery frescoes by attempting to detach them from the walls, as he did at Priscilla in the Greek chapel with the personifications of the seasons, leaving his signature on the wall as well. The original manuscript is preserved in the Vatican Library (codd. Vat. lat. 9839–49). For Christian archaeology, plates 9–13 are of interest for architecture, plates 4–8 for sculpture, and plates 6–12. In 1814 his final work appeared: Recueil de fragments de sculpture antique en terre cuite.