Tarquini, Camillo

TARQUINI, CAMILLO. - Jesuit, cardinal, canonist and archaeologist, b. at Marta (diocese of Montefiascone) on 27 Sept. 1810, d. at Rome on 15 Febr. 1874.

He was professor of canon law at the Roman College for about 20 years; consultor of the Holy Office, of Propaganda, of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, of Bishops and Regulars, theologian of the Sacred Penitentiary. On 22 Dec. 1873 Pius IX created him cardinal. He attracted notice 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), celebrated for its clarity, order and solidity of doctrine. His "voti" (opinions) prepared for the congregations of which he was a member also constitute complete treatises on public ecclesiastical law, full of useful resolutions in legal, moral and disciplinary matters. He also occupied himself with Etruscan, of which he composed a grammar and a dictionary drawn from the text of more than 200 inscriptions that 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 the Civiltà Cattolica, in defense of his theory of the derivation of Etruscan from Hebrew.