Stanislao Loffreda

Stanislao Loffreda, O.F.M. (15 January 1932 – 9 August 2025) was an Italian Franciscan friar, archaeologist, Palestinian pottery expert and Bible scholar.

He belonged to the Italian Province of S. Giacomo nelle Marche. He was ordained as a priest in the Order of Friars Minor in 1956. He was licentiate in Holy Scripture and laureate in theology with biblical specialization, M. A. in archaeology of the Oriental Institute of Chicago in 1967. He served as a professor of biblical archaeology and topography of Jerusalem and the director of Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem (1978–1990). In the years 1968–1991 he was a co-director of the excavations at Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee and in 1978–1981, on the hilltop palace of Machaerus in Jordan.

Loffreda died in Ascoli Piceno, Italy on 9 August 2025, at the age of 93.