FABRETTI, Raphael (1618-1700), a celebrated Italian antiquary, was born in 1618, at Urbino in Umbria. A younger son, and destined to the pursuit of the law, he studied first at Cagli, and afterwards in his native city, where he took the degree of doctor at the age of eighteen years. While in Rome, preparing for practice at the bar, he early attracted the notice of Cardinal Lorenzo Imperiali, who employed him on important and difficult political affairs in Spain. He was named successively treasurer and auditor of the papal legation in that country, where he remained thirteen years. During all this time, however, his favourite classical and antiquarian studies were not neglected; and returning to Rome with the legate, Bonelli, who had been made cardinal, he was able on the journey to make important observations of the relics and monuments of Spain, France, and Italy, and to converse with the many eminent scholars of those countries who afterwards corresponded with him. At Rome he was appointed judge of appellation of the Capitol, which post he left to be, under the legate, Cardinal Cerri, auditor of the legation at his native city, Urbino. After three years he returned to Rome, on the invitation of Cardinal Carpegna, vicar of Innocent XI., a great lover of antiquities and learning, and now found that fulness of leisure which enabled him to carry on those studies and produce those works which have made him famous. He examined with minute care the monuments and inscriptions of the Campagna. In his solitary expeditions he always rode a horse which his friends nicknamed Marco Polo, after the celebrated Venetian traveller, saying that it could discover half-hidden monuments by smelling only, and thus frequently led its master to notice what he would otherwise have passed by. ...