Vito Maria Amico | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 5 October 1762 65) | (aged
Nationality | Italian |
Occupation(s) | Christian monk, university teacher, medievalist, geographer |
Title | abbot |
Academic background | |
Influences |
|
Academic work | |
Discipline | Medieval studies |
Sub-discipline | History of Sicily,Topography |
Institutions | University of Catania |
Influenced | Gioacchino Di Marzo [1] |
Vito Maria Amico (15 February 1697 - 5 December 1762) was an Italian monk,historian and writer. He is most notable for the last work published in his lifetime,Lexicon topographicum Siculum...,a topographical dictionary of Sicily published between 1757 and 1760,describing its history,settlements and best-known families,monuments and churches.
He was born in Catania to Vito Amico and Anna Statella,both from Catanese noble families. He entered the Monastery of San Nicolòl'Arena in Catania aged sixteen,becoming its prior aged 34. He later became overall prior of all 25 Benedictine monasteries in Messina,Militello,Castelbuono and Monreale and was made abbot in 1757. [1]
His passion for knowledge led him to research Sicilian history and natural history in Etna's lava fields and to search for fossils in Militello. He also collected pottery,vases,medals and coins from archaeological excavations,later donating them to Catania's Museo di antichitàgreco-romane,sited beside the University of Catania's library,which he had founded himself - in a short period that museum had a notable collection. He later took the chair in secular history at the same university and founded Catania's first public library. He was made "royal historian" by Carlo di Borbone in 1751. [2]
Giovanni Battista Hodierna, also spelled as Odierna was an Italian astronomer at the court of Giulio Tomasi, Duke of Palma. He compiled a catalogue of comets and other celestial objects containing some 40 entries, including at least 19 real and verifiable nebulous objects that might be confused with comets.
The Ventimiglia were a noble family of Liguria, now in Italy. Descendants of the family held positions and titles of nobility in Sicily in Mediaeval times and later.
Sperlinga is a comune in the province of Enna, in the central part of the island of Sicily, in southern Italy. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia.
Filadelfo Mugnos was an Italian historian, genealogist, poet and man of letters.
Gallo-Italic of Sicily is a group of Gallo-Italic languages found in about 15 isolated communities of central eastern Sicily. Forming a language island in the otherwise Sicilian language area, it dates back to migrations from northern Italy during the reign of Norman Roger I of Sicily and his successors.
Antonio Amico was a Roman Catholic Canon of Palermo, and ecclesiastical historian of Syracuse and Messina. Philip IV awarded him with the title Royal Historiographer of Sicily in 1622. Amico conducted extensive archival research in Sicily, discovering and transcribing important documents relating to the history of the island. He died in 1641, having published several historical works of great value, and leaving many others in manuscript. Amico's manuscripts were deposited after his death in the libraries of the duke of Madonia and of Jaime de Palafox y Cardona, archbishop of Palermo.
Tommaso Fazello was an Italian Dominican friar, historian and antiquarian. He is known as the father of Sicilian history. He is the author of the first printed history of Sicily: De Rebus Siculis Decades Duae, published in Palermo in 1558 in Latin. He was born in Sciacca, Sicily and died in Palermo, Sicily.
Vito D'Anna was an Italian painter, considered the most prominent painter of Palermitan rococo and one of the most important artists of Sicily.
Giovanni Forti Natoli or Gianforte Natoli was a Sicilian nobleman, the son of Blasco Natoli Lanza and Domenica Giambruno Perna. He was baron of S. Bartolomeo and Belice. On 20 August 1597 he bought the barony of Sperlinga from Giovanni Ventimiglia, marquis of Gerace, for 30,834 ounces of gold. Natoli was granted a licentia populandi cum privilegium aedificandi by the king of Sicily, Philip II of Spain. In 1627 he was made prince of Sperlinga by Philip IV of Spain.
Vincenzo Cutelli was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Catania (1577–1589).
Sebastiano Bagolino was a Latin poet and scholar.
Macalda di Scaletta was a Sicilian baroness and lady-in-waiting during the Angevin and Aragonese periods. The daughter of Giovanni di Scaletta and a Sicilian noblewoman, Macalda was noted for her unscrupulous political conduct, inclination to betray marriage, and for her promiscuous sexual habits; this dissoluteness, even having a brush with "suspicion of incest," tended to degenerate into an "exhibitionism veined with nymphomania." She was the wife of the Grand Justiciar of the Kingdom of Sicily, Alaimo da Lentini.
Antonio Mongitore was a Sicilian presbyter, historian and writer, known for his works about the history of Sicily. He was also canon of the cathedral chapter of Palermo.
Asmundo is an old Sicilian noble family that has played a notable role in the island's political, cultural, and economic history.
Giuseppe Bencivenni Pelli or Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni was an Italian civil servant and essayist. Born and dying in Florence, he served as director of the Uffizi Gallery from 1775 to 1793. He was the last member of a Florentine patrician family.
Gioacchino Di Marzo was an Italian art historian, librarian and Jesuit. He was librarian to the Comunale di Palermo as well as a historiographer and one of the founders of modern Sicilian art history.
Gabriele Lancillotto Castello, prince of Torremuzza and marques of Motta d'Affermo (1727–1794) was an Italian nobleman, antiquarian, numismatist and antiquarian, most notable for his study of Sicily's coins and ancient past. He was also known as Lancellotto Castelli and wrote under the pseudonym Selinunte Drogonteo.
Ignazio Paternò Castello, Prince of Biscari was an Italian polymath, antiquarian, and patron of the arts, who lived most of his life in his native Catania in Sicily.
Francesco Ferrara was an Italian geologist, active mainly in Sicily, and known for his studies in vulcanology.
Tommaso Aversa (1623–1663) was an Italian Baroque poet and dramatist.