TIRABOSCHI, GIROLAMO. – Historian, born in Bergamo on 18 Dec. 1731, died in Modena on 3 June 1794. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1746, taught rhetoric at the Brera College in Milan, and from 1770 served as prefect of the Estense Library in Modena.
There he published from 1772 to 1782 the *Storia della letteratura italiana*, which appeared in a second definitive edition in sixteen volumes, with additions and corrections, again in Modena from 1787 to 1793. It is a vast compilation of information, sifted by a highly vigilant critical mind, following the method and example of Muratori, and arranged in a solid structure intended to encompass the entire development of Italian culture from the Etruscan age down to the end of the 17th century. Tiraboschi’s erudition, scorned by many in the Romantic age, was later praised by pure philologists for its seriousness and remains useful to scholars.
This same value is evident in the *Biblioteca moderna* (6 vols., Modena 1781–86), containing notices on writers, artists, and composers from the Estense provinces; in the *Storia dell’angusta badia di S. Silvestro di Nonantola*, furnished with a diplomatic codex (2 vols., 1784–85); in the *Memorie storiche modenesi* (5 vols., 1793–95), which recounts the history of the Estense provinces from Roman times to the 15th century, reconstructs the series of bishops of Modena and Reggio, supplies information on monasteries and the leading families of the region, and publishes numerous documents, largely unpublished, from 1767 to 1469; in the *Dizionario topografico-storico degli Stati Estensi* (posthumous, 2 vols., Modena 1824–25); and in other minor works.