Name

Giovanni Battista Raimondi

Original name

Main activity

Orientalist

Secondary activity

Mathematician

Title

Name variations

Raimondi, Giovanni Battista"

Education place

Education institution

Activity place

Rome

Activity institution

Typographia Medicea

Activity start date

1584

Activity end date

1614

Place of birth

Naples

Date of birth

1536

Place of death

Rome

Date of death

1614

Bibliographical references

Casari, DBI, 2016

Descriptive card

Mathematician, philosopher, and polyglot orientalist. He was the scientific director of the Typographia Medicea, established in Rome in 1584 by cardinal Ferdinando de'Medici and pope Gregorius XIII. With the Typographia he produced beautiful editions of Oriental texts, mainly in Arabic, on Linguistics, Natural sciences, and Christian religion aimed at enhancing the knowledge of Arabic in Europe, opening the Oriental market to printed books, and unifying the Oriental Churches under the Holy See. Among the projects proposed by Raimondi was also an edition, translation and confutation of the Qur'ān about which different documents and preparatory text are preserved.

Entry author

Sara Fani