AMELLI, AMBROGIO MARIA. — Historian, palaeographer, and musicologist, born in Milan on 19 March 1848, died at Montecassino on 25 August 1933.
He studied in the Milanese seminaries and was ordained a priest.
AMELLO
Amelli, Ambrogio - Portrait.
(AMELOTTE), DENYS. — Oratorian theologian, born at Saintes in 1606, died in Paris in 1679. Doctor at the Sorbonne, he joined Condren (q.v.), of whom he became one of the principal disciples, in the work of missions to the people; in 1650 he entered the Oratory, becoming assistant and superior of the mother house.
His major work is the Version of the New Testament, with notes, in 3 vols., Paris 1666-70, based on “the ancient Latin edition,” praised by Richard Simon, which went through more than 30 editions. He published La vie du père Charles de Condren, Paris 1643, the first notable example of psychological biography, and in 1654 La vie de sœur Marguerite du Saint-Sacrement, which met with much opposition (q.V. ACARIE). He also produced a Concordance of the Four Gospels, in French (1669) and in Latin (1670), and The Epistles and Gospels for the Whole Year, with the Ordinary of the Mass in French and Latin, frequently reprinted. A bitter opponent of Jansenism, he wrote La défense des constitutions d'Innocent X et des décrets de l'Assemblée générale du Clergé de France contre la doctrine de Jansenius, Paris 1660 (Latin trans., Cologne 1690), to which Nicole (q.v.) replied in 1661. His last work is the excellent Abrégé de la théologie ou des principales vérités de la religion, Paris 1675, imbued with Berullian spirit: God is the principle of all things and must be the end of all our actions; Jesus Christ became man to communicate Himself to us “by uniting Himself to all degrees of being found gathered in man”; hope is not an imperfect virtue because it seeks God as our sole end.