Mai, Angelo, a noted Roman Catholic prelate, and one of the most distinguished scholars of the 19th cen- tury, was born at Schilpario (province of Bergamo), It- ah', March 7, 1782. As a youth he arrested the atten- tion of his instructor, the ex-Jesuit father Lewis Mozzi de' Caspitani, by the unusual taste and capacity which he displayed for classical learning. The father, deter- mined to lead Angelo's inclination towards the service of the Church, finally induced him to enter, in 1799, the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, which, although else- where suppressed, the Duke of Parma, with the sanction of Pius VI, was just re-establishing at Colorno, a small city of his duchy. In this community Mai resided till the provisional restoration of the society in Naples (1804), whither he was sent as Professor of Greek and Latin literature. About the end of 1805 he was trans- ferred to Rome for the completion of his theological studies, and soon afterwards to Orvieto, and was there admitted to priest's orders. It was at this place that he acquired great familiarity with the Hebrew language, his accurate knowledge of palieography, and his skill in de- ciphering ancient manuscrii)ts. He returned to Rome in 1808, just about the time when the contest of Pius VII with Napoleon was teaching the crisis; an order issued by the viceroy, commanding all subjects of the kingdom of Italy to return to their respective provinces, had compelled him to change his residence once again. Happily for the interests of literature, he settled at Mi-
lan. The Ambroslan Library of that city had long been known as rich in manuscripts of the highest inter- est— the remnant of the treasures of the old monastic libraries, especially those of Bobbio and Lucca, and of some of the suppressed Benedictine convents of the Prot- estant cantons of Switzerland. Many of its best treas- ures had been made public by Muratori,Mabillon, and the Benedictine editors; but there yet remained a de- partment entirely unexplored, which Mai soon appropri- ated to himself, and which has since come to be regarded as exclusively his own — that of palimpsest or re-writ- ten manuscripts, in which the original writing has been effaced in order to make room for a later work written over it. INIai was admitted an associate, and eventually a doctor of this celebrated library, and labored in this novel editorial career Avith a zeal and success not un- worthy of the traditional glories of his country. From the Society of Jesus, to which he had not yet avowed himself, he now withdrew, with the consent and ap- proval of the authorities at Rome. His first essay as an author was a Latin translation (with a commentary) of Isocrates, Z)e Perimitaiione (1813), the original of which had been published by a Greek named Andrew Mustox- idi in the previous year; but this was only the prelude of his far more remarkable successes in the decipher- ment and publication of palimpsest manuscripts. Up to this period, with the exception of Klister and Wctstein's readings of the Old and New Testament from the Codex Ephremi, Knittcl's portions of the Gothic Bible of Ul- pliilas, Peter Bruns's fragment of the ninety-first book of Livy, and Barrett's palimpsest of the Gospels, palimp- sest literature was entirely untried. Within a few years Mai deciphered and published from palimpsest sources writings of several classical authors, besides two works then supposed to be by Philo Judaius, but afterwards recognised as the productions of Georgius Gemistus. In
1819 Mai was called to Rome as chief keeper of the Vatican Library, canon of the Church of St. Peter's, and domestic prelate of the pope, Pius VII. Here he con- tinued the publication of palimpsest manuscripts, and in
1820 brought out the work by which he is best known out of Italy — a large and interesting portion of the long- lost De RepuhUca of Cicero, the fragments of which he arranged with consummate skill in their respective or- der, and intenvove with all the known extracts of the work which had been preserved in the collections of an- cient authors. The whole text he illustrated by a crit- ical commentary of exceeding interest, which at once established his reputation -as one of the first scholars of the age.
From these comparatively desultorj' labors he turned to a project not unworthy of the palmiest days of Ital- ian editorship. Selectuig from the vast and till then imperfectly explored manuscript treasures of the Vati- can, he ]irei)arcd his Scriptorum veteriim. Xovd Colkclio e Vaticanis Cod'uibus edita (Rome, 1825, and later, 10 vols. 4to), on the plan of the various A iiecdoia, published under different titles by Mabillon, Pez,Montiau(,^on,Mu- ratori, and others. It is a work of immense labor and research, and of a most miscellaneous character — Greek and Latin, sacred and profane, theological, historical, pa- tristical, and philosophical. Next, he published Clas- sici Scriptores ex Codicibus Vaticanis edifi (comjiloted in 1838, in 10 vols. 8vo), which included some of the edi- tor's earlier publications (especially the De Rejiuhlica^ ; although, with the exception of aljout two volumes, its contents were entirely new Scarceh* was this collection finished when he entered upon the prejiaration of the Spinlcf/inm Romannm (1830-44, 10 vols. 8\-o"), equallj- in- teresting and various in its contents, and a fourth col- lection entitled Nora. I'atrmn Bihlioilteca (1845-63, 6 vols. 4to), thus completing a series unparalleled since the days of INIuratori, and, indeed, far more extraordinary than the older collections, from the circumstance that it was compiled from the mere gleanings which had es- caped the research of the earlier generations of editors and collectors. In addition to all these labors, and while