MAI, ANGELO. - Cardinal, palaeographer, b. at Schilpario (Bergamo) on 7 March 1782, d. at Albano on 9 September 1854. He entered the Society of Jesus at Colorno (Parma) in 1799; after ordination he was sent to the Collegio di Orvieto, where he was introduced to the study of palaeography and palimpsests by Frs. Montero and Menchaca, Spanish Jesuits of the old school. In 1813 he was appointed a scriptor at the Ambrosian Library. Recalled to Rome by Pius VII in 1814, when he had already won world-wide fame for his discoveries, Cardinals E. Consalvi and L. Litta, judging that Mai, placed at the head of the Vatican Library, would serve the glory of God better outside than within the Society of Jesus, proposed to the Pope that he should be released from his vows; this took place in 1819 by mutual agreement between Pius VII and Fr-General A. Fortis. From 1819 until his death Mai was Prefect of the Vatican Library. He was created cardinal on 2 February 1838.
Mai’s fame rests on his discovery and publication of 359 hitherto unknown works of ancient pagan and Christian authors from palimpsests in the Ambrosian and Vatican Libraries: orations of Cicero, especially part of the De Republica, the works of Fronto, letters of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius, fragments of Homer, Plautus, Terence, Aurelius Symmachus, the Chronicle of Eusebius of Pamphylia, the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a work of Porphyry, and the Itinerarium Alexandri. Among the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers he brought to light works of Augustine, Hilary, Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose, Athanasius, Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzen, Marius Victorinus, the deacon Ferrandus, Martin, and many Byzantine writers.
The principal works he discovered he collected into four great series, each provided with introductions and notes: Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e Vaticanis codicibus edita (10 vols., Rome 1825-38); Nova Patrum Bibliotheca (7 vols., ibid. 1852-54); Spicilegium Romanum (10 vols., ibid. 1939-44); Classici auctores e Vaticanis codicibus collecti (10 vols., ibid. 1828-1838). For many years he also worked on the Vatican Codex of the Bible, which was later published by command of Pius IX through the Barnabite C. Vercellone (Rome 1857 and, in improved form, ibid. 1859). It must be added that the imperfection of the technical means employed for reading palimpsests destroyed several works on the parchments treated, and that many of the texts published bear the marks of the collector’s impatient haste.
On the occasion of Mai’s discovery of Cicero’s lost books on the Republic, Leopardi wrote the canzone: “Italo ardito, a che giammai non posi…”.