Angelo Mai (''Latin'' Angelus Maius; 7 March 17828 September 1854) was an Italian

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

and

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the

Ambrosian Library The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, whose agen ...

in Milan and then in the same role at the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

. The texts were often in parchment manuscripts that had been washed off and reused; he was able to read the lower text using chemicals. In particular he was able to locate a substantial portion of the much sought-after ''De Republica'' of

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

and the complete works of

Virgilius Maro Grammaticus Virgilius Maro Grammaticus (, ), known in English as Virgil the Grammarian or Virgil of Toulouse, is the author of two early medieval grammatical texts known as the ''Epitomae'' and the ''Epistolae''. Biographical It is unknown exactly when or ...

. In 1954, to celebrate the first century after his death, the public library of Bergamo, the city where he was from, was named after him Biblioteca civica Angelo Mai e archivi storici.

Biography

He was born of humble parents at Schilpario in what is now the

province of Bergamo The province of Bergamo (; ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Bergamo. The province has a population of 1,103,768 (2023), an area of , and contains 242 ''comune, comuni'' (municipali ...

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

. In 1799 he entered the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

, and in 1804 he became a teacher of classics in the college of

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

. After completing his studies at the Collegium Romanum, he lived for some time at

Orvieto Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...

, where he was engaged in teaching and palaeographical studies. The political events of 1808, when French troops occupied the Papal States, necessitated his withdrawal from

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

(to which he had meanwhile returned) to

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, where in 1813 he was made custodian of the

Ambrosian library The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, whose agen ...

. He now threw himself with characteristic energy and zeal into the task of examining the numerous manuscripts committed to his charge, and in the course of the next six years was able to restore to the world a considerable number of long-lost works. Having withdrawn from the Society of Jesus, he was invited to Rome in 1819 as chief keeper of the

. In 1833 he was transferred to the office of secretary of the Congregation of the Propaganda; on 12 February 1838 he was raised to the dignity of cardinal. He died at Castel Gandolfo, near Albano, on 8 September 1854. His monumental tomb is located in the left transept of the Basilica di Sant'Anastasia al Palatino by the late neoclassical sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni.

Works

It is on his skill as a reader of

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

s that Mai's fame chiefly rests. To the period of his residence at Milan belong: *fragments of

's ''Pro Scauro'', ''Pro Tullio'', ''Pro Flacco'', ''In Clodium et Curionem'', ''De aere alieno Milonis'', and ''De rege Alexandrino'' (1814) *'' M. Corn. Frontonis opera inedita, cum epistolis item ineditis'', ''Antonini Pii'', ''Marci Aurelii'', ''Lucii Veri et Appiani'' (1815; new ed., 1823, with more than 100 additional letters found in the Vatican library) *portions of eight speeches of

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus Quintus Aurelius Symmachus Nickname, signo Eusebius (, ; c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and intellectual. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa (province), Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and R ...

*fragments of

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

*the oration of

Isaeus Isaeus ( ''Isaios''; fl. early 4th century BC) was one of the ten Attic orators according to the Alexandrian canon. He was a student of Isocrates in Athens, and later taught Demosthenes while working as a ''metic'' logographer (speechwriter) for ...

' ''De hereditate Cleonymi'' *the last nine books of the ''Antiquities'' of

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dionysius of Halicarnassus (, ; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary style was ''atticistic'' – imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime. ...

, and a number of other works. *''M Tullii Ciceronis

de republica ''De re publica'' (''On the Republic''; see below) is a dialogue on Roman politics by Cicero, written in six books between 54 and 51 BC. The work does not survive in a complete state, and large parts are missing. The surviving sections derive f ...

quae supersunt'' appeared at Rome in 1822 *''Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, e Vaticanis codicibus edita'' ("A new collection of ancient writings, edited from Vatican codices") in 1825-1838 *''Classici scriptores e Vaticanis codicibus editi'' ("Classical writers edited from Vatican codices") in 1828-1838 *''Spicilegium Romanum'' ("A Roman gleaning") in 1839-1844 *''Patrum nova bibliotheca'' ("A new library of hurchfathers") in 1845-1853 His edition of the celebrated ''

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...

'', completed in 1838, but not published (ostensibly on the ground of inaccuracies) till four years after his death (1858), is the least satisfactory of his labours and was superseded by the edition of Vercellone and Cozza (1868), which itself leaves much to be desired. Although Mai was not as successful in

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...

as in the decipherment of manuscripts, he will always be remembered as a laborious and persevering pioneer, by whose efforts many ancient writings have been rescued from oblivion.

References

External links

List of links to scans of volumes in Mai's series including the ''Patrum Nova Bibliotheca'', ''Spicilegium Romanum'', ''Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio'' and ''Classici Auctores e Vaticanis Codicibus Editi''
from the "Links Galore" spreadsheet {{DEFAULTSORT:Mai, Angelo 1782 births 1854 deaths People from Schilpario 19th-century Italian cardinals Former Jesuits Jesuit cardinals Cardinals created by Pope Gregory XVI Italian philologists 19th-century Italian Jesuits