Fabretti, Raffaele
A distinguished Italian archaeologist, born at Urbino in Umbria in 1618. He studied law at
Cagli and in his native city, where he took the doctor's degree at the age of eighteen. He
soon after attracted the notice of Cardinal Lorenzo Imperiali, by whose influence he was
employed in important political negotiations in Spain, where he acted as treasurer and later
as auditor to the Papal legation at Madrid, remaining there for thirteen years. Returning to
Rome, he became a judge, and then an auditor of legation at Urbino. Having always had a strong
predilection for antiquarian studies, he now, by the invitation of Cardinal Carpegna, found an
opportunity of prosecuting them at his leisure. Taking up his residence in Rome, he began the
archaeological investigations that have made his name memorable, by a most minute study of the
topography and ruins of the Campagna, spending day after day in solitary expeditions on his
horse Marco Polo, of which he has written pleasantly as being an animal with a keen scent for
buried monuments.
In 1680, Fabretti published his first important work, entitled
De Aquis et Aquae
Ductibus Veteris Romae—a treatise which cleared up many obscure points in
the topography of Latium, and which is printed in the
Thesaurus of Graevius
(iv. 1677). Other treatises of his are that
De Columna Traiani
Syntagma (Rome, 1683); and the
Inscriptionum Antiquarum
Explicatio (Rome, 1699). The former contains an explanation also of the
famous Iliac Table, a bas-relief now in the Capitol, and representing scenes in the Trojan
War. Both these works throw much light on Roman archaeology, and are especially important for
their recognition of the comparative method of studying epigraphic remains. Fabretti became
involved in a controversy with
Gronovius (q.v.)
regarding the interpretation by the former of a passage in Livy , and the two scholars
assailed each other in the abusive vocabulary of contemporary scholarship, Fabretti styling
Gronovius
Grunnovius or “grunter,” and Gronovius retorting
by calling Fabretti
faber rusticus.
Fabretti died in January, 1700, having been for a number of years keeper of the archives of
the Castello S. Angelo, under Innocent XII.—an office of great responsibility.
