AMBROGI, ANTON MARIA

ANTON MARIA AMBROGI. – Jesuit, born in Florence on 13 June 1713, died in Rome on 11 February 1788. A learned writer and scholar, he taught eloquence and poetry at the Collegio Romano for thirty years, gaining great renown especially for his translation of Virgil’s Works (the best edition, Rome 1763–65) and of Selected Letters of Cicero (Rome 1780), which he enriched with learned and acute notes. He also gave strong impetus to Jesuit theatre, composing biblical tragedies and translating and adapting eight tragedies by Voltaire (Florence 1752). The illustrative work for the collections of the Kircherian Museum, now partly housed in the Pigorini Prehistoric-Ethnographic Museum, Musaei Kircheriani in Romano Soc. Gesu Collegio aerea notis illustrata (Rome 1763–65), has been attributed to him; however, the work is by Fr. Contuccio Contucci, curator and reorganizer of the Museum, and Ambrogi likely participated in II.