AMICI, a-meche, Giovanni Batista, a: Italian savant: b. in Modena 1786; d_ 18t4 He studied natural history at Bologna, and mathematics at Modena. He became profsco. of mathematics at the College of Panaro, and for some time general inspector of educatioe in Modena, where in 1831 the Grand Duke o: Tuscany appointed him director of the Florence observatory, as successor of the celebrate.; comet-discoverer, Luigi Pons. This office he held until his death, publishing every year the result of his astronomical observations, at the same time contributing important papers cc natural history to the Memorie della Socuti Italiana. Science is especially indebted to 13i= for his improvement of the telescope, of seven: microscopes, and of the camera lucida, invented by Hooke and Wollaston. He seems to hare from his earliest life devoted much attentioc to optical instruments, and before he was 3 he made a telescope of a mixture composed himself. In 1827 he made dioptric which are sold with his name attached, and, not withstanding the improved microscopes of Oberhauser, are still in great favor. He was assisted in his labors by his son, Vincenzo Amici, who was professor of mathematics r the University of Pisa.
AMICIS, Edmond() de, Italy', foremost descriptive writer: b. Oneglia, of Gen oese parentage, 21 Oct. 1846; d. Bordighera, 11 March 1908. Educated at Coni and Turin, he attended the Modena military school; entered service 1863 as sub-lieutenant, acted against the Sicilian brigands and served through the Airs tro—Prussian War of 1866. He remained in the army till the occupation of Rome in 1870; bat his literary vocation was plain. In 1867 he took charge of a Florentine paper, L'Italia Militorr In 1868 his first volume, 'Military Sketches.: short stories of the phases of a soldier's life. had sweeping success and marked him as the coming Italian litterateur; and in 1871 he settled at Turin and devoted himself to authorship. His next work was (Recollections' (of 1870-711, dedicated to the youth of Italy; a fresh collec tion of stories followed. But a craving for
travel turned him into the path which has given him his greatest fame: the foreign world at least knows him mainly by the brilliant, glow ing volumes descrihing the countries of Europe and other continents he visited, their national characteristics and habits, and, most of all, the springs of their life and thought. They are enthusiastic, sympathetic, optimistic, full of sensuous delight in beauty, rich in color and vivid in clearness of portrayal; but they exhibit too a marvelously keen analytic power as well as acute photographic sensitiveness to impres sions and marvelous literary skill in translating them into language. The greatest of these per haps is 'Holland" (1874), a singularly fine analysis of the essence of Dutch life and the sources of Dutch art in that life; others are (1873), (Recollections of London' (1874), (Morocco) (1876), of (1878), (1878). He published also in these times Por traits) (1881), sympathetic studies of Daudet, Zola, Dumas, Jr., Augier, Coquelin and Deroulede; 'The Friends,) on friendship in• general (18g2) ; historical novelettes, a collec tion in part old, entitled The Gate of (1884) ; On the Ocean) (1889). Later, educa tional and social problems deeply occupied his mind: his (Cuore) (Hearts; Englished as Heart of a Schoolboy)), a juvenile in which a pupil tells the events of a school year day by day, has sold nearly 200,000 copies in Italy; a novel for adults on similar lines is (The Work men's Mistress) (1895) ; followed the same year by The Romance of a Master) (1895), which has a strong socialistic bent. He avows him self that he thinks Socialism the only available spring of a vital Italian literature now. His latest works are: (Everybody's Wagon) (1899), (1899), (Hope and Glory) (1900), and (Records of Infancy and School) (1901). See CUORE.