TARQUINI, CAMILLO. - Jesuit, cardinal, canonist, and archaeologist, b. at Marta (diocese of Montefiascone) on 27 Sept. 1810, d. at Rome on 15 Feb. 1874.
He was professor of canon law for about twenty years at the Collegio romano; consultor of the Holy Office, of Propaganda, of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, of Bishops and Regulars, and theologian of the Sacred Penitentiary. On 22 Dec. 1873 Pius IX created him cardinal. He distinguished himself from the outset with a dissertation, Del regio placet (Rome 1853); but his principal merit lies in the Iuris publici ecclesiastici institutiones (Rome 1862; 14th ed., ibid. 1892), praised for the clarity, order, and soundness of its doctrine. His “vota,” prepared for the congregations of which he was a member, likewise constitute complete treatises on ecclesiastical public law, full of useful solutions in legal, moral, and disciplinary matters. He also occupied himself with Etruscan, composing a grammar and a dictionary of it drawn from the text of more than 200 inscriptions which he translated and commented upon in: Breve commento di antiche iscrizioni appartenenti alla città di Fermo (Rome 1847); Dichiarazione dell'epigrafe del lampadorio di Cortona (Rome 1862); and many articles in Civiltà Cattolica, defending his theory of the derivation of Etruscan from Hebrew.