FRANCESCO MARIA APPENDINI (1768-1837), Italian historian and philologist, was born at Poirino, near Turin, on the 4th of November 1768. Educated at Rome, he took orders and was sent to Ragusa, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric. When the French seized Ragusa, Napoleon placed Appendini at the head of the Ragusan academy. After the Austrian occupation he was appointed principal of a college at Zara, where he died in 1837. Appendini's chief work was his Notizie Istorico-critiche sulle Antichita, Storia, e Letteratura dei Ragusci (1802-1803).