38 Ambrose, Saint
East and West. Culturally, Amalfi fostered the influence
of Byzantine works of art into the West. Amalfi also
made a significant legal contribution, with the redaction
of a collection of maritime statutes that ultimately
formed the basis of European commercial and maritime
jurisprudence.
Further reading: Robert Gathorne-Hardy, Amalfi:
Aspects of the City and Her Ancient Territories(London:
Faber, 1968); Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans:
Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries(Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), especially
chapter 5; Patricia Skinner, Family Power in Southern
Italy: The Duchy of Gaeta and Its Neighbours, 850–1139
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Henry
M. Willard, Abbot Desiderius and the Ties between Monte-
cassino and Amalfi in the Eleventh Century(Montecassino:
Badia di Montecassino, 1973).
Ambrose, Saint(339–397)bishop of Milan, chief oppo-
nent of Arianism, adviser to Western emperors
Born into the highest social class in 339, Ambrose was a
respected provincial governor of Emilia-Lisuria when the
entire city proclaimed him bishop. He rose to this status
in eight days from that of an unbaptized Christian. More
than any previous bishop, he played an important role in
the politics of his day, especially in his excommunication
in 390 of the Emperor Theodosios I (r. 379–395) after
that emperor massacred thousands of civilians in THESSA-
LONIKIas reprisal for the murder of German mercenaries
garrisoned there. Theodosios was forced to yield to the
penance Ambrose imposed on him, and thus accede to
Ambrose’s insistence that the church is independent of
the state, and even superior to it in questions of faith and
morals. A famous preacher, he exerted a great influence
in the conversion of AUGUSTINE, who writes of Ambrose’s
kindness, generosity, erudition, and eloquence. Later rec-
ognized as a father of the church, Ambrose died in 397.
Further reading: Boniface Ramsey, Ambrose (New
York: Routledge, 1997); Neil B. McLynn, Ambrose of
Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994); John Moorhead,
Ambrose: Church and Society in the Late Roman World
(New York: Longman, 1999).
Amiens Cathedral Amiens Cathedral is classified as
one of the five archetypical GOTHICcathedrals of FRANCE,
together with Bourges, CHARTRES,RHEIMS, and Soissons.
The cathedral also contains luminous decorative and
structural features that foreshadow later Gothic architec-
ture. Amiens is noted for its fully developed Gothic plan,
with a choir with ambulatory and seven radiating chapels
and aisled transept and nave. The vaults of the nave are
138 feet high, among the tallest in any Gothic building.
The Gothic cathedral was rebuilt after a fire around 1220
had destroyed a Romanesque cathedral. The chronology
of construction is not clear, but according to tradition,
the nave was built from about 1220 to 1235, the lower
story of the transept, choir, and radiating chapels in
about 1235–40, and the upper parts of the choir in about
1240 to about 1280. Its large sculpture program is not
outstanding. The cathedral underwent extensive restora-
tion by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc between 1849
and 1874, but the interior has not been changed much,
with only the loss of much of the STAINED GLASS.
Further reading:Robert Branner, St. Louis and the
Court Style in Gothic Architecture(London: A. Zwemmer,
1965); Hans Jantzen, High Gothic: The Classic Cathedrals
of Chartres, Reims and Amiens (New York: Pantheon,
1962); Stephen Murray, Notre-Dame, Cathedral of Amiens:
The Power of Change in Gothic(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996); Susie Nash, Between France and
Flanders: Manuscript Illumination in Amiens(London: The
British Library, 1999).amour courtois SeeCOURTLY LOVE.Anatolia(Asia Minor)Geographically, Anatolia or Asia
Minor constitutes a large peninsula at the extremity of
western Asia extending toward Europe, the Asian part ofThe choir of Amiens Cathedral (1890–1900) (Courtesy Library
of Congress)