Biography
Amadio degli Amidei
About Amadio degli Amidei
Amadio degli Amidei is venerated among the Seven Founders of the Order of Servants of Mary. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints identifies him within the group remembered for leaving commerce in Florence to pursue prayer, penitence and service to Mary. Their canonization by Leo XIII on 15 January 1888 recognized the seven together.
The 1887 canonization compendium calls him Amideus de Amideis. Patrick Griffin’s Catholic Encyclopedia article identifies the founder as Bartolomeo degli Amidei, with Amideus as his religious name.
Arnaldo D’Addario’s study of the Amidei places the family within Florence’s wealthy and politically influential society. It rejects the chroniclers’ account of ancient Roman origins as fanciful and identifies Amadio as a Servite cofounder. The wider family’s factional conflicts should not be assigned to him merely because he bore its name.
Agostino Morini’s 1888 study gives a birth year of 1204 and death on 18 April 1266. The canonization compendium repeats that death date. D’Addario, however, associates the cofounder with a discussion of the family’s dispersal after 1268.
The compendium describes a shared remembrance that resisted division into separate cults. The founders were invoked together, and their remains were kept together; even separately preserved skulls could not be confidently assigned to individuals. This nineteenth-century record helps explain why Amadio’s place in the group is clearer than many details of his individual life.
The Church now commemorates the Seven Founders on 17 February. Amadio’s remembrance belongs within that common observance, with its emphasis on a life shared in devotion and service.
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