FEA, CARLO (1753–1836), Italian archaeologist, was born at Pigna in Piedmont on the 2nd of February 1753, and studied law in Rome. He received the degree of doctor of laws from the university of La Sapienza, but archaeology gradually absorbed his attention, and with the view of obtaining better opportunities for his researches in 1798 he took orders. For political reasons he was obliged to take refuge in Florence; on his return in 1799 he was imprisoned by the Neapolitans, at that time in occupation of Rome, as a Jacobin, but shortly afterwards liberated and appointed Commissario delle Antichità and librarian to Prince Chigi. He died at Rome on the 18th of March 1836.
Fea revised, with notes, an Italian translation of J. J. Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst, and also added notes to some of G. L. Bianconi’s works. Among his original writings the principal are:—Miscellanea filologica, critica, e antiquaria; L’Integrità del Panteone rivendicata a M. Agrippa; Frammenti di fasti consolari; Iscrizioni di monumenti pubblichi; and Descrizione di Roma.