Joseph Allegranza was a Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

ese Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 who won distinction as a historian, archaeologist

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, and antiquary.

From 1748 to 1754 Allegranza conducted research in northern and central Italy and in France. After being put in charge of the Royal Library at Milan, he made a catalogue of its contents, a work which was crowned, in 1775, by the Empress Maria Theresa

Maria Theresa of Austria

Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...

.

Works

• Spiegazioni e riflessioni sopra alcuni sacri monumenti antichi di Milano (Milan, 1757)
• De sepulcris christianis in aedibus sacris. — Accedunt inscriptiones sepulcrales christianae saeculo septimo antiquiores in Insubria Austriaca repertae: item Inscriptiones sepulcrales ecclesiarum atque aedium PP. Ord. Praed. Mediolani (Milan, 1773)
• De Monogrammate D. N. Jesu Christi et usitatis ejus effingendi modis (Milan, 1773)
• Opuscoli eruditi latini ed italiani (Cremona, 1781)
• Osservazioni antiquarie critiche e fisiche fatte nel regno di Sicilia (Milan, 1781)