AMARI, MICHELE (1806-1889), Italian orientalist and patriot, born at Palermo. He joined the Carbonari, and had to leave Italy because he had written a work on the Sicilian Ves pers, entitled Un periodo delle storie Siciliane del XIII. Secolo (1839), containing many political allusions reflecting on the Bourbon Government of Naples. As a refugee in Paris he di vided his time between political work and mental studies. The revolution of 1848 found him in Sicily once more, but on the restoration of the Bourbons he was once more an exile. He re turned to Italy in 18S9, and taught Arabic at Pisa and afterwards at Florence. A strong supporter of Cavour, he was minister of education in the Farini and Minghetti cabinets. On the fall of the latter in 1864, he resumed his chair at Florence, where he lived until his death in 1889.
His interest in Arabic studies had been first awakened by French translations of Arabic works on his native island, and his principal work is connected with the history of Sicily. This book, La Storia dei Musulmani in Sicilia, was begun in 1844, and the fourth and last volume was printed in 1873. He is still the standard authority on the Muslim rule in Sicily.
Even more important are his collections of Arabic sources for the history of Sicily: Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula; con appendice (Leipzig, 1857-75), Italian trans. (Rome, 188o); I diplomi arabi del arc/eivio florentino (Florence, 1863) .
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See A. d'Ancona, Carteggio di Michele Amari coil Bibliography. See A. d'Ancona, Carteggio di Michele Amari coil elogio di lui (Turin, 1896) ; Oreste Tommasini's essay in Scritti di storia e critica (Rome, 1891) ; and Centenario della nascit2 di Michele Amari (Palermo, 191o), which contains valuable additions to the Biblioteca.