Amico of Rambona

Amico of Rambona was a Benedictine abbot, born at Monte Milone, now Pollenza, in the Marche, Italy, in the 10th century, and he died there in 996. He is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and remembered on 9 November. The name Amico, of Frankish origin, was widespread in Italy in the 11th century, and he is often confused with other saints of the same name, such as Amico of Avellana.

He was the son of Bongiovanni, probably lord of the stronghold of Monte Milone or in any case a soldier of that fortress. Little is known of his life; some news comes from the Liber Gratissimus of Saint Peter Damian, of 1052, so written a few years after his death. Peter Damian gave him as an example that even clerics ordained by simoniac bishops can reach holiness. He was a monk, then a priest, and the second Benedictine abbot of the abbey of Rambona, a powerful monastery not far from his birthplace; before him the abbot was Olderigo. He died at the church of Santa Maria in Monte Milone, then dependent on the abbey of Rambona, with a small hospice attached. From there his body was moved and buried in the abbey of Rambona, where it rests still.

Soon after his death, people of the surrounding area began to visit his tomb often. In his tomb more than four hundred medieval and Renaissance coins from several mints of central Italy, Hungarian and Greek, were found, as well as many votive offerings, a sign that the tomb was a place of pilgrimage.

He is a local saint of the West; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.