AMATO di MONTECASSINO. – Benedictine, historian of the 11th century. He was a monk of the celebrated abbey under Abbot Desiderio (1058–86); he was also a bishop, as reliable sources document, although we do not know of which diocese.
His name is linked to the Historia Normannorum, in 8 books, written by him between 1080 and 1086 and dedicated to Desiderio, who inspired the work. The first 3 books recount the history of the Normans from their northern origins to their first conquests in Italy; from Book IV onward, it is the history of Riccardo di Capua and Roberto il Guiscardo. The narrative ends with the death of Riccardo (1078). A. is enthusiastic about the Normans
(he calls them exceedingly powerful, invincible), and he grasped the great historical importance of the new political force that was taking shape in southern Italy. His work is not a chronicle: he intends to write a history (and therefore does not follow a strictly chronological order), following the model of Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum. The Latin text of A.’s Historia has not come down to us; we have only a fourteenth-century translation into poor French: the translation is not literal, and the text is often abridged; the copyist introduced further errors.
We have information about other works written by A.: the Gesta Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, a poem in 4 books which, through its account of the life of S. Pietro (the second apostle is merely recalled at the end of book IV), seeks to celebrate the Church’s reforming action under Gregorio VII; and two other minor writings, now lost: De laude Gregorii VII and De duodecim lapidibus et civitate caelesti Hierusalem.