Giovanni Oliva (archaeologist)

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Giovanni Oliva (born July 11, 1689 in Rovigo , Veneto , † March 19, 1757 in Paris ) was an Italian archaeologist and bibliographer .

Life

As a pupil of the seminary in Padua , Giovanni Oliva moved to the university there, became a priest in 1711 and soon afterwards professor of humanities at the College of Asolo . In his free time he studied the French language and in 1716 translated Claude Fleury's Traité des études into Italian. After eight years of administration of the professorship in Asolo, he went to Rome at the request of his friends , where he received the benevolence of Clement XI. and after the death of this Pope (1721) became the first secretary of the conclave . On this occasion the Cardinal von Rohan came to appreciate him. He brought him to France in 1722 and entrusted him with the supervision of his sizeable library, with Oliva, which was sold to the Soubisesches Haus. For more than three decades, he was the director of this library, which under his influence became a literary center for French scholars and a valuable source of information for foreign scholars. Oliva acquired new collections of books and, in lengthy work, produced a catalog in 25 folio volumes about this extensive library. In Paris he also gave lessons in Greek and Latin, both of which he had a thorough command of. Cardinal von Rohan had him naturalized in order to enable him to own benefices in France. In 1757, Oliva died in the French capital at the age of 67.

Oliva's literary activity dealt among other things with Greek and Roman archeology. As early as 1716 he wrote the Oratio de numorum veterum cognitione cum historia conjungenda published in Venice , and in 1718 the treatise De antiqua in Romani's scholis grammaticorum disciplina dissertatio ludicra, which dealt with the situation of the grammarians in ancient Rome, and in 1719 the description of one of them printed in Rome Marble monument dedicated to Isis ( In marmor Isiacum Romae nuper effosum exercitationes , 1719). This monument had just been discovered during excavations near the library of Minerva, and Oliva sought to prove that it was originally conceived as a votive altar. All three small treatises mentioned were published collectively under the title Œuvres diverses de l'abbé Oliva (Paris 1758). The editor, a Mr. Escalopier, has added an Éloge historique de l'auteur to the book .

Another work by Olivas is entitled Les impostures de l'histoire ancienne et profane, traduction de l'italien de Lancelotti par l'abbé Oliva, revue et corrigée (posthumously published in 2 volumes, London and Paris 1770). Oliva also wrote Epistola de vita Camilli Silvestris (Rome 1720), which precedes the handwritten interpretatio left by this scholar in anaglyphum graecum . When Giovanni Maria Lancisi , Clement XI's personal physician, died while this work was being printed, Oliva added a De morte JM Lancisii brevis dissertatio . Furthermore, Oliva published Poggio Bracciolini's De varietate fortunae libri quatuor in Paris in 1723 based on a manuscript by Cardinal Ottoboni and 57 unpublished letters from Poggio.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Oliva, Giovanni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian archaeologist and bibliographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1689
PLACE OF BIRTH Rovigo , Veneto
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1757
Place of death Paris