Angelo Mai (March 7, 1782 – September 8, 1854) was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan and then in the same role at the Vatican Library. The texts were often in parchment palimpsests; he was able to read the lower text using chemicals such as Gallic acid. In particular he was able to locate a substantial portion of the long known of and much sought-after De re publica of Cicero.
Famous quotes containing the word angelo:
“Some theosophists have arrived at a certain hostility and indignation towards matter, as the Manichean and Plotinus. They distrusted in themselves any looking back to these flesh-pots of Egypt. Plotinus was ashamed of his body. In short, they might all say of matter, what Michael Angelo said of external beauty, “it is the frail and weary weed, in which God dresses the soul, which he has called into time.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)