SETTELE, GIUSEPPE. - Archaeologist, canon of St. Peter's, b. in Rome in 1770, d. there in 1840. Against his father's wishes, he devoted himself to studies, especially of mathematics and Christian archaeology.
He taught mathematics and astronomy at the University of Rome and Christian antiquities at the Roman Seminary, for which discipline he compiled the Trattato elementare di archeologia cristiana, which G. B. De Rossi knew in manuscript. He was a visitor or conservator of the cemeteries, in which office he displayed great care for the preservation of inscriptions; he also continued the list of the holy bodies that were extracted from the catacombs (Regestum, III, IV). He left a Diario, in which he records his studies, his projects and the works undertaken and still to be undertaken. Among his publications are remembered: Memoria sull'importanza dei monumenti che si trovano nei cemeterij degli antichi cristiani, in Atti della Pont. acc. rom. di arch., 1st series, 2 (1825), pp. 41-104; Illustrazione di un'antica iscrizione esistente nella chiesa di S. Silvestro in Capite, ibid., 3 (1829), pp. 229-266; Illustrazione di un antico monumento cristiano trovato nel cemeterio di Ciriaca, ibid., 4 (1831), pp. 23-50; Osservazioni sopra le lapidi pagane che si trovano nelle catacombe, ibid., 5 (1835), pp. 179-200; Illustrazione di due iscrizioni trovate nella basilica di S. Paolo nella Via Ostiense (Rome 1831). Settele's most important work consists of the new edition, with an appendix, of Sacrarum Vaticanae Basilicae cryptarum monumenta aeris tabulis incisa et a P. L. Dionysio commentaria illustrata, Rome 1840. In it Settele was assisted by E. Sarti.
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Carlo Carletti