Antonio Nibby

Who was Antonio Nibby?

Antonio Nibby was an Italian archaeologist.

Nibby was a critic of the history of ancient art and from 1812 in service to the Vatican worked to excavate the monuments of Rome. He also served as a secretary to Louis Napoleon, Comte de Saint-Leu. He was a professor of archaeology in the University of Rome and in the French Academy in Rome. For a few years Nibby worked together with the British archaeologist William Gell and together they published a study on the walls of Rome in 1820. They had plans of publishing a study on the topography of the Roman Campagna, but they ended up publishing separately.

Nibby excavated in the area of the Forum Romanum from 1827, and cleared the Cloaca Maxima in 1829.