AMMIRATI, BERNARDINO

AMMIRATI, BERNARDINO. - Friar Minor, missionary in China, born at Montalto in Liguria on 17 Nov. 1827, died at Wuchang on 22 Jan. 1875. He took the religious habit at the retreat of Greccio in 1845; then, ordained priest in 1851, he prepared himself for the apostolate at the missionary college of S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome. Having departed for China in 1853 and, after staying for two months in Hong-Kong with the apostolic vicar Rizzolati, perfecting his knowledge of the Chinese language, he went to his assigned province of Hupé. There he exercised his ministry until 1871, the year in which he moved to Hunan, returning the following year to Hupé, where he remained until his death. A. repeatedly endured persecutions and was beaten and reviled by pagans. His zeal and his proficiency in the Chinese language enabled him to establish several Christian communities. He also wrote in Chinese a small medical manual on children’s diseases, intended for the baptizers of the S. Infanzia; a second edition appeared in Wuchang in 1886.