Michele Amari : a historiographical assessment

Abstract

Michele Amari (1806-1889) was a Sicilian patriot, a revolutionary, and also a pioneering historian of Muslim Sicily, whose books are still considered as standard reference nowadays. His modern biographers tend to direct their efforts to just one of the two main aspects of his career whilst they overlook the intimate connection between the two. The scholars that celebrate Amari's revolutionary flair concentrate their efforts on La guerra def Vespro siciliano while those who are interested in Amari's career as an Arabist focus on the Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia and Biblioteca arabo-sicu/a. However my main aim in this dissertation has been to produce a holistic overview of the themes present at the core of his major works. Amari's first successful foray into history was Un periodo de/le storie siciliane def seco/o XIII, 1 which he wrote with great passion and revolutionary fervour, on the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. However Amari had to escape from Sicily as he incurred the wrath of the Bourbon government. Amari settled in Paris and soon immersed himself in the study of Arabic. This sudden interest in Arabic rose primarily from his chief objective of shedding new light upon the obscure Muslim period in Sicily's history. Amari believed that Arabists are not the only ones who need to read and write in Arabic. Before he entered the scene, the study of Muslim Sicily was still at its infancy stage as it was solely dominated by the writings of Rosario Gregorio. Amari's books marked a turning point in European historiography since he ventured to uncover Sicily's forgotten medieval past by making use of innovative research methods. He defied all odds as he undertook the study of Arabic quite late in life. Nonetheless this did not deter him from uncovering and translating Arabic primary sources. In fact he showed an inherent ability of working on Arabic primary sources. In doing so, he laid the foundations for the studies on Muslim Sicily. As a testament to Amari's works, the historical developments made in the last hundred and fifty years have confirmed the relevance and importance of his writings in the twenty first century.