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| Michele Amari |
After passing through several hands, the two kingdoms were conquered from the Austrians during the War of the Polish Succession (1733-38) by a young Spaniard, the Duke of Parma, who would then go on to be recognized (on July 3rd, 1735) as King Charles of Naples and Sicily, the founder of the Bourbon Dynasty in Southern Italy. The Two Sicilies (i Due Sicilie) as they had been known de facto for centuries previously, were once again legally recognized as a single nation by the powers of Europe at the proclamation of the re-unification of the two kingdoms into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on December 12th, 1816.
At an early age Michele Amari was inculcated with the teachings of liberal republicanism, thanks in large part to his grandfather. A bright lad and avid learner, by the time he reached the age of 14 he had obtained a clerical position in the civil service of the Bourbon bureaucracy.
Nevertheless, his liberal upbringing, plus the ill-fated Sicilian separatist rebellion of 1820, inspired him to join the ranks of the Carbonari (It. “charcoal-burners”). The Carbonari in Southern Italy were revolutionary secret societies that were probably offshoots of the Freemasons. Originally organized to overthrow the Bourbons (whom they regarded as foreign rulers) and install constitutional liberties, the Carbonarists eventually found themselves vacillating between them and French vassal Joachim Murat during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15).
After the fall of Murat and the restoration of the Bourbons, the Carbonarists in Sicily devoted themselves to the cause of liberty and secession. In Naples, on the other hand, the Carbonarists worked for the overthrow of the Bourbons and the establishment of republican rule. Their name was derived from the rituals they borrowed from the trade of charcoal-burning, an occupation widely practiced in the mountains of the Abruzzi and Calabria.
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| Joachim Murat |
Michele Amari’s father was implicated in the rebellion and arrested in 1822. He was tried and along with many others sentenced to death. His sentenced was commuted, however, and by 1834 he was freed. His incarceration, though, cemented Michele’s hatred of the Bourbons, and he vowed to work for their overthrow. He even began a vigorous program of physical exercise to prepare him for the day of revolution.
In addition, he deeply studied the subjects of English and of history. His first literary essay was a translation of Sir Walter Scott’s essay Marmion (1832). Seven years later he published Un Periodo delle storie Siciliane del XIII. secolo (Eng. “A Period of Sicilian History of the 13th Century). The book was a work on the Sicilian Vespers that became an immediate success and subsequently spawned many additions. However, it was also politically charged, containing many unfavorable allusions to the Bourbon government in Naples. In 1842 he barely made it out of the country in time to avoid arrest.
Settling in Paris, France, he struck up friendships with a number of French historical scholars including Augustin Thierry and Jules Michelet. These men awoke in Amari a deep-seated interest in the Arab history of Sicily. With intense study, he was soon able to add Arabic to the list of languages he mastered.
In 1844 he began what was to become his masterpiece, La Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia (Eng. “The History of the Muslims of Sicily”). His work was interrupted, though, in 1848 when the island was swept up by the short-lived Sicilian Revolution of Independence. Amari put down his pen to once again join the rebels against the Bourbons. During the time the rebels held sway over the island Amari was appointed member of the war committee as well as being professor of public law at the University of Palermo. Later, he became Minister of Public Finance in the Stabile cabinet.
The revolution was immensely popular with both noble and peasant alike. The first shots were fired on January 12th, 1848 in the city of Palermo. It soon spread over the whole of Sicily. Sicilian nobles were able to resurrect the Constitution of 1812, which King Ferdinand I had squashed years earlier. In true Sicilian fashion, the government it proposed was remarkably ahead of its time. It was based on the Westminster system of parliamentary government and included principles of representative democracy as well as making Parliament, rather than the Crown, central to the government of the state. The de facto head of state was Ruggeru Sèttimu, Prince of Castelnuovo.
The nascent Sicilian state, like its predecessor during the time of the Vespers, was sadly short-lived. The armies of King Ferdinand II invaded the island and by May15th, 1849 had completely crushed the rebels. Though they ultimately lost, their influence was far-reaching. The Sicilian Revolution of Independence touched off a series of rebellions that engulfed the whole of the continent of Europe. It also greatly weakened the Bourbon hold on Southern Italy. Michele Amari once again was forced to seek refuge in Paris where he continued his scholarly research on the old Muslim presence in Sicily. He published his first volume in 1854.
By 1859 Michele Amari’s scholarship in Arabic studies was known throughout Western Europe. Early that year he was appointed professor of Arabic at Pisa. Later that same year he received a similar appointment at university in Florence.
In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Thousand invaded Sicily. Amari returned and was appointed to a position in the new government. Though he considered himself very Sicilian in sentiment, he foolishly threw his lot in with the northern conqueror. Like so many others of his people, he was taken in by the false promises of liberal republicanism and equality. In fact, he became one of the staunchest advocates for the unification of Sicily with the new “nation” of Italy, being instrumental in convincing many influential Sicilians to support the so-called Risorgimento. For his support, Prime Minister Camillo Benso di Cavour had him appointed a senator. It has been said Amari supported unification with the expectation Cavour would soon grant Sicily some regional autonomy. If true, he was undoubtedly soon disappointed.
After 1864 he retired from politics to return to his scholarly pursuits, completing the last volume of his Storia dei Musulmani in 1873. By the time of his death on July 16th, 1889 he had earned a reputation throughout Europe as one of its leading experts on Orientalism. In particular, he was widely regarded as one of its leading, if not in fact its leading, translators of Medieval Arabic writings. He had accumulated a number of honors, both national and international, and counted many important literary figures among his friends.
His works on the Sicilian Vespers and the Muslims of Sicily are still considered definitive works and required reading for anyone who truly wishes to gain an in-depth knowledge of the subjects. The latter work, in fact, has been translated into numerous languages, most recently into Arabic by a group of Egyptian scholars in 2004. More recently (2005) this literary masterpiece was the focus of a conference at the Algerian National Library that involved a number of Italian universities. Amine Zaoui, the director of the library, had expressed his hope one day this work would be accessible to all Algerian readers.
Yet in spite of his lingering fame across the Atlantic, here in America Michele Amari has been all but forgotten, most conspicuously by Italian-Americans. This is all the more interesting given the fact the bulk of Italian-Americans (80% by some estimates) are of Southern Italian extraction. Even more incredibly is the fact no biography of this learned historian has ever been written in English!
The strange dearth of material on this man becomes more apparent when one compares and contrasts his life with that of another Italian writer, Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873). Like Amari, Manzoni was a writer who embraced the Risorgimento and promulgated its tenets in his writings. His novel (and masterpiece), The Betrothed (It. I promessi sposi) is considered by many to be the most outstanding example of Italian literature. Both men were intensely patriotic pan-Italians.
That, however, is where the similarities end. Unlike Michele Amari, the Sicilian, Alessandro Manzoni was a Milanese. Whereas Amari risked imprisonment (or worse) in his zeal for the Risorgimento, Manzoni never was at any risk for his political activities. Whereas Amari knew poverty more than once in his lifetime, Manzoni was comfortable living on a stipend bequeathed him by his mother’s lover.
Both men created outstanding works of literature. Yet if one makes the rounds of literary intellectual circles here in America, even Italian-American ones, one readily finds an abundance of written material by and about Alessandro Manzoni. Curiously, there is little if any on Michele Amari. Knowing his biography and his enduring influence overseas, how does one rationalize this?
Is it merely an oversight on the part of those who’ve taken it upon themselves to keep alive the flames of Italian culture here in the New World? If not, is it rather, as writer/blogger Tom Verso termed it, a “Gramsci Test Case”; an example of what the astute Sardinian political philosopher termed the “cultural hegemony” of Northern Italy over the terroni living in the south?
I already know the answer, dear readers. Do you?
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