SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

92 Saga-Book oj the Viking Society
When Ami returned from Iceland in 1713 he took
up his academic duties as professor "philosophize et
antiquitatum Danicarum", the post to which he had been
appointed in 1701, and in the University Library.
During all these years Ami's collection of books and
manuscripts had steadily increased and contained many
rare and invaluable items, some of which were irreplaceable.
It was therefore an irredeemable calamity when
his house caught fire in the great fire of Copenhagen of
1728. Although the greater part of the manuscript
collection was saved, much was lost and almost all his
printed books, among which was said to have been the
only known whole copy of Breviarium Holense.
Arni married fairly late in life a widow ten years his
senior, thus safeguarding himself against cura posteritatis,
which he had so often in his talks and letters to friends
shown a decided reluctance to shoulder.
Ami died on the 7th of January 1730.
Ami Magnusson was a man of great learning and
a methodical, critical and intelligent scholar whose work
and ideas were in many respects far ahead of his times.
He disdained the uncritical methods of many of his
contemporaries, who copied the works of others without
any independent thinking and evaluation. Perhaps
Ami's own words describe best his attitude to this type of
scholarship: "Svo gengur pal'5 til i heiminum, al'5 sumir
hjalpa erroribus a gang og al'5rir leitast sil'5an vil'5 al'5
utryoja aftur peim sornu erroribus. Hafa svo hverir
tveggja nokkuo a