AMEDEO MENEZ DE SYLVA, blessed. – Franciscan, born at Ceuta in 1420 to Rodrigo Gomez de Sylva, royal prince of Castile, and Isabella Menez of the noble family of Villa Reale in Portugal; hence he is now called Spanish, now Portuguese. He died in the convent of S. Maria della Pace in Milan on 10 August 1482. He was the brother of blessed Beatrice de Sylva. Having enlisted under the command of Giovanni II against the Moors and been seriously wounded in the arm, in 1442 he withdrew among the Hermits of s. Girolamo at Guadalupe, where he remained until 1452, when, by divine inspiration, he went to Assisi and asked the minister general, Fr. Angelo da Perugia, to be admitted to the Franciscan Order. The request was granted only three years later, when, after Fr. Angelo’s death, he was succeeded by Fr. Giacomo da Mozzanica. In 1456, the latter sent A. to the convent of S. Francesco in Milan, where he lived as a solitary in the company of fra' Giorgio da Valcamonica. From Milan, in 1457, he went to Moriano Comense, then to Oran, and afterward to Bressanoro. A.’s edifying life aroused the admiration of his superiors, who in 1459 had him ordained a priest; of the duchess Bianca Maria Sforza, who sent him as extraordinary ambassador to Pope Pius II concerning matters relating to the spiritual welfare of the State of Milan; and of his fellow brothers. Many of them, with the approval of their superiors, gathered around A., choosing him as director and guide in a stricter observance of the Franciscan rule. He thus found himself at the head of that movement of Franciscan reform which, after him, was called the « Congregation of the Amedeiti ». Sixtus IV, who had the blessed as his confessor, summoned him to Rome, assigning him the convent of S. Pietro in Montorio as his residence. By immemorial cult, though not officially recognized by the Church, he is called blessed.
The Amedeiti, who numbered 21 convents at the founder’s death, later rising to 39, were united in 1517 with the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance by Leo X’s bull Ite et vos. Since, however, they were not merged into it, they continued for some time to remain partly independent, until in 1568 Pius V fully incorporated them into the Order.
While residing at S. Pietro in Montorio, A. wrote a prophetic work that remained unpublished, entitled Apocalypsis nova, containing 8 « ratti », to which are added 4 psalms, 4 canticles, 4 sermons on s. John the Baptist, and 10 other sermons and exhortations. The original is to be regarded as lost; the existing manuscripts, replete with childish notions and doctrinal errors, are considered interpolated.
P. Sevesi, Il Beato A. Menez de Sylva e documenti inediti, in Miscellanea Franciscana, 32 (1912), p. 227 ff.; R. Galli, Il beato A. Menez de Sylva, Quaracchi 1923; L. Wadding, Annales Minorum, XIII, 2nd ed., Quaracchi 1932, p. 410 ff. (the 1st ed. is Lyons 1625-54).