Life and Works
He was born in Rome. He applied the sciences of archaeology and epigraphy and his thorough knowledge of the topography of Rome and the resources of the Vatican Library, where he was employed cataloguing manuscripts, to Early Christian sites and guided the development of a new field, Christian archaeology. He travelled widely, knew all the museum collections intimately and was at the centre of a network of professional friendships with all the European scholars of his fields.
In 1849 he rediscovered the lost Catacombs of Callixtus along the Via Appia Antica, with Alexander de Richemont. The catacombs were opened in the early 3rd century, as the principal Christian cemetery in Rome, where nine 3rd-century popes were buried.
In 1888 de Rossi discovered that the Codex Amiatinus, the earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate version, was related to the Bibles mentioned by Bede. It was also established that the Codex Amiatinus was related to the Greenleaf Bible fragment in the British Library. For a thousand years the Codex Amiatinus was believed to be Italian in origin. It was only at that time that de Rossi discovered that the original inscription was that of Ceolfrith of the English.
He died at Castel Gandolfo.
Read more about this topic: Giovanni Battista De Rossi
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