Pietro Amat di San Filippo


Pietro Amat di San Filippo was an Italian geographer, historian and bibliographer.

Family

He was born to a noble Sardinian family of Catalan origin. He was the fourth of fifteen siblings, the children of Giuseppe Amat di San Filippo. Cardinal Luigi Amat di San Filippo e Sorso was his uncle. He married Donna Angela Musio, daughter of a judge and Senator, and they had seven children.

Career

He studied at the Barnabites High School in Bologna, then undertook a diplomatic career as a secretary of legation to the Holy See in 1851. Later he left diplomacy and became an officer of the Sardinian National Archive in his hometown. In these years he undertook studies in geography and became a member of the Italian Geographical Society. Due to his interest and his publications in economics, he was appointed a secretary of the Ministry of Finance in Rome, where he ended his career.

Works

All Amat's works were printed in Italian; in order to provide a better understanding of their content to the English reader, in the following list titles are translated into English.
Pietro Amat has given valuable contributions to three main lines of study:
In general terms, he was in contact with contemporary cultural milieu and his main legacy is in following a scientific method in his research, in which he was one among the first scholars: he based his studies on original, usually unpublished, documents.