Alphonsus Ciacconius

Don Alphonsus Ciacconius (; 15 December 153014 February 1599) was a Spanish Dominican scholar in Rome. Ciacconius was an expert on ancient Graeco-Roman and Paleo-Christian epigraphy, the Medieval paleography and manuscripts, besides the history of the papacy.

Biography Ciacconius studied theology at the university of Santa Catalina, Jaén, from 1548 to 1553, when he was appointed ‘collegiale perpetuo’ at the Colegio de Santo Tomás, Seville. His archaeological interests were spurred by his friendship with Ambrosio de Morales, author of Las antigüedades de las ciudades de España (Alcalá de Henares, 1575).

In 1566 Ciacconius was summoned to Rome as Minor Apostolic Penitentiary of St Peter’s. While there he lived as a guest of Cardinal Francisco Pacheco de Toledo and wrote his first major work on Roman history, the Historia seu verissima a calumniis multorum vindicata (1576), dedicated to Pope Gregory XIII. His Historia utriusque belli Dacici a Traiano Caesare gesti ex simulacris, illustrated with engravings of the helical reliefs by Francesco Villamena after drawings by Girolamo Muziano, was completed in the same year.

Ciacconius’ research into Early Christian archaeology began in 1578, with the discovery of the Catacomb of the Iordani on the Via Salaria Nuova, Rome. He commissioned copies of the wall paintings, and a second exemplar was ordered by Federico Borromeo for the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Milan, Bib. Ambrosiana, F. 221, inf. 1–4).

Following Onofrio Panvinio, Ciacconius assembled portraits of the Early Christian popes (Rome, Vatican, Bib. Apostolica, MS. Vat. lat. 6103) and drawings of the papal tombs of Honorius IV, Urban VI and Boniface VIII (Rome, Bib. Angelica, MS. 1564). His final work, the Vitae et gesta summorum pontificum a Christo Domino usque ad Clementem VIII, was published posthumously in 1601.

Two other treatises were sketched out but left incomplete at his death: an ‘Antiquitates Romanae’ (Rome, Vatican, Bib. Apostolica, MS. Chig. vat. lat. R. II. 62) is composed of two books, the first presenting 300 uomini famosi and the second dealing with ancient dress, weapons and occupations; the ‘Historica descriptio urbis Romae sub pontificibus’ (Rome, Vatican, Bib. Apostolica, MS. Chig. lat. I. V. 167 and Madrid, Bib. N., MS. 2008), begun c. 1567, covers 300 Christian cult sites in Rome, including inscriptions from ancient, medieval and Renaissance epitaphs.

Works