Lodovico Antonio Muratori (21 October 1672 – 23 January 1750), commonly referred to in Latin as Muratorius, was an Italian Catholic priest, notable as historian and a leading scholar of his age, and for his discovery of the Muratorian fragment, the earliest known list of New Testament books.

The following year, he was called to the college of "Dottori" at the Ambrosian Library in Milan, where he immediately started collecting unedited ancient writings of various kinds.

He even intended to establish something like a general society of Italian literature, and as early as 1703 published for this purpose, under the pseudonym "Lamindo Pritanio", a plan Primi disegni della republica letteraria d'Italia.

In 1708 a quarrel broke out between the Holy See (aided by the emperor) and the Dukes of Este, over the possession of Comacchio, which involved the sovereignty of the district of Ferrara.

At the same time Muratori edited a collection of seventy-five essays on different historical themes, entitled Antiquitates italicæ medii ævi (6 vols.

He also published a work, which attracted considerable attention, on the question as to how far freedom of thinking might go in religious matters, De ingeniorum moderatione in religionis negotio (Paris, 1714).

In the quarrel about the ideas of George Hermes, his book, De ingeniorum moderatione, was translated into German by Biunde and Braun (Coblenz, 1837) in the interest of the followers of the Hermesian doctrines.