Francesco Ambrosi

[1] Ambrosi was born to a family of herders in Borgo Valsugana, the present day Italian province of Trentino – at that time part of the (Princely) County of Tyrol, a crown land of the Austrian Empire.

In 1854 he began publishing the journal La flora del Tirolo meridionale, which was discontinued in 1857 before he was able to complete the detailed list, after a fire destroyed his house in the city of Trento, including all his archives and collections.

In that role, he was able to facilitate a series of initiatives, including the establishment of a chair for the teaching of Italian history and literature in 1869, and the publication of the periodical Historical Archive for Istria, Trieste and Trento from 1881.

He became close friends with Fortunato Vincenzo Zeni, one of the founders of the Museo civico di Rovereto, and worked with German scholar Theodor Mommsen to expand his expertise on, and organize his collection of epigraphs.

Because of his patriotic and pro-Italian sentiments, in 1881 Ambrosi was tried, by the Austro-Hungarian government, on charges of breaking press laws, for holding in the library a volume censored by the public security authorities.