FABRIANI, SEVERINO (1792-1849), Italian author and teacher, was born at Spilamberto, Italy, on the 7th of January 1792. Entering the Church, he took up educational work, but in consequence of complete loss of voice he resolved to devote himself to teaching deaf mutes, and founded a small school specially for them. This school the duke of Modena made into an institute, and by a special authority from the pope a teaching staff of nuns was appointed. Fabriani’s method of instruction is summed up in his Logical Letters on Italian Grammar (1847). He died on the 27th of April 1849.
FABRIANO, a town of the Marches, Italy, in the province of Ancona, from which it is 44 m. S.W. by rail, 1066 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) town 9586, commune 22,996. It has been noted since the 13th century for its paper mills, which still produce the best paper in Italy. A school of painting arose here, one of the early masters of which is Allegretto Nuzi (1308-1385); and several of the churches contain works by him and other local masters. His pupil, Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1428), was a painter of considerably greater skill and wider knowledge; but there are no important works of his at Fabriano. The sacristy of S. Agostino also contains some good frescoes by Ottaviano Nelli of Gubbio. The municipal picture gallery contains a collection of pictures, and among them are some primitive frescoes, attributable to the 12th century, which still retain traces of Byzantine influence. The Archivio Comunale contains documents on watermarked paper of local manufacture going back to the 13th century. The Ponte dell’ Acra, a bridge of the 15th century, is noticeable for the ingenuity and strength of its construction. The hospital of S. Maria Buon Gesu is a fine work of 1456, attributed to Rossellino.
See A. Zonghi, Antiche Carte Fabrianesi.
(T. As.)
FABRICIUS, GAIUS LUSCINUS (i.e. “the one-eyed”), Roman general, was the first member of the Fabrician gens who settled in Rome. He migrated to Rome from Aletrium (Livy ix. 43), one of the Hernican towns which was allowed to retain its independence as a reward for not having revolted. In 285 he was one of the ambassadors sent to the Tarentines to dissuade them from making war on the Romans. In 282 (when consul) he defeated the Bruttians and Lucanians, who had besieged Thurii (Livy, Epit. 12). After the defeat of the Romans by Pyrrhus at Heraclea (280), Fabricius was sent to treat for the ransom and exchange of the prisoners. All attempts to bribe him were unsuccessful, and Pyrrhus is said to have been so impressed that he released the prisoners without ransom (Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 18). The story that Pyrrhus attempted to frighten Fabricius by the sight of an elephant is probably a fiction. In 278 Fabricius was elected consul for the second time, and was successful in negotiating terms of peace with Pyrrhus, who sailed away to Sicily. Fabricius afterwards gained a series of victories over the Samnites, the Lucanians and the Bruttians, and on his return to Rome received the honour of a triumph. Notwithstanding the offices he had filled he died poor, and provision had to be made for his daughter out of the funds of the state (Val. Max. iv. 4, 10). Fabricius was regarded by the Romans of later times as a model of ancient simplicity and incorruptible integrity.
FABRICIUS, GEORG (1516-1571), German poet, historian and archaeologist, was born at Chemnitz in upper Saxony on the 23rd of April 1516, and educated at Leipzig. Travelling in Italy with one of his pupils, he made an exhaustive study of the antiquities of Rome. He published the results in his Roma (1550), in which the correspondence between every discoverable relic of the old city and the references to them in ancient literature was traced in detail. In 1546 he was appointed rector of the college of Meissen, where he died on the 17th of July 1571. In his sacred poems he affected to avoid every word with the slightest savour of paganism; and he blamed the poets for their allusions to pagan divinities.
Principal works: editions of Terence (1548) and Virgil (1551); Poëmatum sacrorum libri xxv. (1560); Poëtarum veterum ecclesiasticorum opera Christiana (1562); De Re Poëtica libri septem (1565); Rerum Misnicarum libri septem (1569); (posthumous) Originum illustrissimae stirpis Saxonicae libri septem (1597); Rerum Germaniae magnae et Saxoniae universae memorabilium mirabiliumque volumina duo (1609). A life of Georg Fabricius was published in 1839 by D.C.W. Baumgarten-Crusius, who in 1845 also issued an edition of Fabricius’s Epistolae ad W. Meurerum et alios aequales, with a short sketch De Vita Ge. Fabricii et de gente Fabriciorum; see also F. Wachter in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie.