MAI, ANGELO. — Cardinal, paleographer, b. at Schilpario (Bergamo) on 7 March 1782, d. at Albano on 9 Sept. 1854. He entered the Society of Jesus at Colorno (Parma) in 1799; after being ordained a priest, he was introduced at the College of Orvieto to the study of paleography and palimpsests by Fathers Montero and Menchaca, former Spanish Jesuits; in 1815 he obtained a position as a scriptor at the Ambrosian Library. Recalled to Rome by
Pius VII in 1814, when he had already acquired worldwide fame through his discoveries, Cardinals E. Consalvi and L. Litta, judging that M., placed at the head of the Vatican Library, would serve the glory of God better than in the Society of Jesus, proposed to the Pope that he be released from the Order; this took place in 1819 by mutual agreement between Pius VII and the superior general, Fr A.
Fortis. M. was consequently prefect of the Vatican Library from 1819 until his death. He was then created cardinal on 2 February 1838.
M. owes his fame to the discovery and publication of 359 unpublished works by ancient pagan and Christian authors from palimpsests in the Ambrosian and Vatican Libraries: Cicero’s speeches and especially part of the De Republica, the works of Fronto, letters of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius, fragments of Homer, Plautus, Cerenzio, Aurelius Symmachus, of the Chronicle of Eusebius of Pamphilus, of the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a work by Porphyry, and the Itinerarium Alexandri. Among the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, he discovered works by Augustine, Hilary, Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose, Athanasius, Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa and Nazianzus, Marius Victorinus, the deacon Ferrandus, Martin, and many Byzantine writers.
He collected the principal works he had discovered in four great collections, supplying them with introductions and notes: Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e Vaticanis codicibus edita (10 vols., Rome 1925–38); Nova Patrum Bibliotheca (7 vols., ibid. 1852–54); Spicilegium Romanum (10 vols., ibid. 1939–44); Classici auctores ex codicibus Vaticanis (10 vols., ibid. 1828–1838). He also devoted many years to the Vatican codex of the Bible, subsequently published by order of Pius IX by the Barnabite C. Vercellone (Rome 1857, and, in a better edition, ibid. 1859). It should be added that the imperfection of the technical means employed for reading the palimpsests destroyed several writings on the parchments treated; and that many of the published texts bear considerable traces of the collector’s impatient haste.
For M., Leopardi, on the occasion of the discovery of Cicero’s books on the Republic, wrote the canzone: « Italo ardito, a che giammai non posi... ».
BIBLI: Sommervogel, V, cols. 323–29; B. Prina, Biografia del card. A. M., Bergamo 1882; G. Cozza-Luzi, I grandi lavori del card. M., in Bestiari, 7 (1904), pp. 103–33; 8 (1905), pp. 59–74; 9 (1905) 308–17; 10 (1906), pp. 189–82; G. Pesenti, A. M. Nalizie e docum. dell'infanzia e della giovinezza (1782–1811), in Boll. della Civ. Bibl. di Bergamo, 16 (1922), pp. 153–75; G. Gervasoni, A. M., T. Cicconi e Bern. De Rossi, in Scuola cattolica, Aug. 1928, p. 123 ff., 204 ff., 290 ff.; id., Studi e ricerche sui filologi e la filologia classica tra il '700 e l'800 in Italia, Bergamo 1929, pp. 37–257; P. Pirri, Il Colombo dell'Ambrosiana. Lettere di A. M. a G. Andres, in Civ. Catt., 1934, I, pp. 55–71, 154–49, 227–89; G. Gervasoni, G. Leopardi, filologo e poeta nei suoi rapporti con A. M., Bergamo 1934; id., L'ambiente letter. milanese nel secondo decennio dell'800, A. M. alla Bibl. Ambrosiana, Florence 1936 (with extensive bibliography).