Boni, Giacomo

Basic Biographical Information

Giacomo Boni was born in Venice, Italy, on April 25, 1859. He studied architecture in Venice and worked there as an architect, but is best known for his excavations at Rome, especially those in and around the Forum Romanum undertaken from 1898 onward. He saw military service in World War I and resumed his fieldwork in 1916. He was appointed as a member of the Italian senate in 1923 and died in Rome, Italy, on July 10, 1925, and is interred in the Orti Farnesiani on the Palatine Hill.

Major Accomplishments

Boni’s excavations in Rome resulted in many significant archaeological discoveries and it is for this work that he is most well known; in fact, Boni was a pioneer in terms of excavation methodology. Boni’s stratigraphic excavations in the center of Rome were revolutionary, as no one had ever undertaken deep soundings at Rome that followed stratigraphic principles before (Ammerman 1990: 630). Indeed, Boni’s stratigraphic excavation was one of the first...