Muratori, LODOVICO ANTONIO

Muratori, LODOVICO ANTONIO, Italian antiquary and historian, was born at Vignola, in the duchy of Modena, 21st October 1672. His life was devoted mainly to researches in history, especially the history of his native country. In 1695 he was appointed a librarian of the Ambrosian Library at Milan. His first work was to issue collections of inedited Latin fragments, Ancedota Latina, followed later by Ancedota Græca. In 1700 he was recalled by the Duke of Modena to take charge of the D'Este Library and the ducal archives at Modena. In 1723 the first folio volume of his great collection, Recum Italicarum Scriptores, was published, and between that date and 1751 twenty-eight more. This work contains all the chronicles of Italy from the 5th to the 16th century, illustrated with commentaries and critical notices. It was accompanied by a collection of dissertations illustrative of the religious, literary, social, political, military, and commercial relations of the several states of Italy during the same period, in 6 vols. folio, 1738-42, a work which, although far from being free from errors, is still regarded as a treasure-house of mediæval antiquities. Muratori likewise undertook a general history of Italy (Annali d'Italia, 12 vols. 4to, 1744-49); compiled in two vols. Antichità Estensi (1717); and published Antiquitates Italicæ Medii Ævi (6 vols. 1738-42), and a collection of Ancient Inscriptions (6 vols. 1739-42). In his later years he was attacked by the Jesuits on the ground of teaching heresies; but he found a protector in Pope Benedict XIV. He died at Modena, 23d January 1750. The Antiquitates Italicæ (vol. iii.) contains a catalogue or canon of the New Testament Scriptures, a fragment (the 'Muratorian Fragment'), apparently drawn up by a contemporary of Irenæus; see BIBLE, Vol. II. p. 126. Lightfoot assigned it to Hippolytus; see his Clement of Rome (vol. ii. 1890). Muratori's Collected Works fill 36 volumes (Arezzo, 1767-80), and 48 volumes in another edition (Venice, 1790-1810). See the Life by his nephew (1756).