Muratori, Lodovico Antonio

(1672–1750)

   Historian, Theologian and Liturgist.

   Muratori was born near Modena, Italy. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest and in 1700 he was appointed archivist and librarian to the Duke of Modena. He was the author of several works of theology, liturgy and Italian history, but he is chiefly remembered for publishing the earliest list of New Testament writings. He found the eighty-five-line document in an eighthcentury manuscript. It was thought to date from the second century and was written in bad Latin. In fact, it may well be a translation. Included in the list were the Gospels, Acts, all paul’s Epistles except Hebrews, the Johannine Epistles and Revelation. The Epistles of James and peter were omitted. Also included were the Apocalypse of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon. The Shepherd of hermas and Paul’s Epistles to the Laodiceans and the Alexandrians, which were regarded as canonical by marcion, were rejected. This important find is now known as the Muratorian Canon, named after Muratori.

   E. Cochrane, ‘Muratori: The vocation of a historian’, Catholic Historical Review, li (1965);

   G.M. Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (1972).