Passeri, John Baptist

, a learned Italian antiquary and philologer, was born at Gubio in the duchy of Urbino, in Nov. 1694. His father, who was a physician at Todi, designed him for the study of the law, which accordingly he followed, but pursued with it that of antiquities, for which he had a strong genius. After residing four years at Rome he returned to Todi, and began to collect the antiquities of that city and its environs. In 1726 he turned his attention chiefly to the Etruscan antiquities, and collected a vast number of lamps, which he arranged in classes. Having lost his wife in 1738, after twelve years of happy union, he became an ecclesiastic, and was apostolic prothonotary, and vicar-general of Pesaro. In February 1780, he was overturned in his carriage, and died in consequence of the fall. His works are, 1. “Lucernae fictiles Musei Passerii,” a splendid 4>ook in 3 vols. folio, He had drawn up a fourth, on the lamps of the Christians, but this has not been published. These came out in 1739, 1743, and 1751. 2. “Lettere Roncagliesi;” Letters from his villa at Roncaglia, on Etruscan antiquities, 1739. There were seventeen letters, and a continuation was afterwards published. 3. “In Thorns? Dempsteri Libros de Etruria regali Paralipomena, quibus tabula? eidem operi additsG illustrantur. Accedunt dissertatio de re numaria Etruscorum; de nominibus Etruscorum; et notoe in tabulas Eugabinas, auctore I. Baptista Passerio,” Lucafc, 1767, folio. 4. 4< Picturae Etruscorum in vasculis, nunc primum in unum collectae, explicationibus et dissertationibus illustrate," Romae, 1767, 3 vols. folio. 5. Many learned dissertations published in several collections; as, for example, five in the third volume of Gori’s Museum Etruscum; De Genip domestico, de Ara sepulchrali, de funeribus Etruscorum, de Velciorum familia, de Architectura Etrusca. These are all full of the most recondite learning. ²